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A group of hawkish Senate Republicans announced their plan Thursday to prevent automatic defense cuts mandated by last summer's debt ceiling agreement, which are set to take effect in 2013.
Arizona Sen. John McCain (R), the ranking member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, led a group of Republicans in detailing their plan to prevent a planned $110 billion from the 2013 defense budget by offering other offsetting cuts.
"It's time for the president to lead and accept his responsibilities as commander-in-chief and work with us to enact a plan that will reduce our debt and maintain our military preparedness," McCain said at a press conference on Capitol Hill.
The automatic cuts were contained in last summer's agreement to raise the nation's debt limit. The automatic defense cuts were included as an incentive for Republican members of the supercommittee -- the bipartisan panel charged with identifying $1.2 trillion in savings from the budget over the next 10 years -- to reach an agreement.
But the supercommittee failed, and now, Republicans are trying to undo the defense cuts -- the so-called "sequester" -- by offering different savings. McCain, joined by Republican Sens. Jon Kyl (AZ), John Cornyn (TX), Kelly Ayotte (NH) and Lindsey Graham (SC), offered a plan that would replace $110 billion of planned defense and non-defense cuts, and find an additional $17 billion in savings, by freezing federal salaries through mid-2014, and squeezing the federal workforce by 5 percent through attrition. For every three federal employees who leave, only two would be hired to replace them.
Kyl said he hoped Democrats would support these ideas because they won't see cuts to social programs and have previously supported pay freezes and attrition in parts of the government. Kyl also pushed back on any suggestion that Republicans are hypocritical for being "pro-jobs" while pushing for job cuts in the federal government.
"We're not laying anybody off, we're not proposing to fire anybody," Kyl said.
And House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) lended his voice to the fight, questioning the Obama administration's involvement on the issue.
"The defense portion of the sequester, in my view, would clearly hollow our military," Boehner said at his weekly press conference, "The question I would pose is where's the White House? Where's the leadership that should be there to ensure that this sequester does not go into effect?"
That lack of effort by the administration to undo the sequestered stems from President Obama's stiff veto threat of any effort to undo the automatic cuts unless a balanced, comprehensive deal could be reached.
"Already some in Congress are trying to undo these automatic spending cuts. My message to them is simple: No. I will veto any effort to get rid of those automatic spending cuts to domestic and defense spending," the president said on Nov. 21. “There will be no easy off-ramps on this one. We need to keep the pressure up to compromise, not turn off the pressure."
But perhaps as a bit of foreshadowing of the impending fight over the automatic cuts, a group of 127 Democrats signed a letter to the president urging him against bowing to pressure and find other savings to replace the defense cuts.
"We stand ready to work with you over the next year to put America back on a firm financial footing and will vote to sustain your veto of any effort to repeal all or part of the scheduled sequester," the letter reads.
NBC's Frank Thorp contributed.
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Typical rhetoric. The military industrial complex in action.
Republicans bet the military industrial complex, they lost, the house wins. PAY UP!
Please this cut should take effect. President Obama have shown and lately, a more prudent way to fight wars........brain+tech = efficiency.
More political lies from the Republican party. The defense spending is not being cut by $118 billion. Each year the defense budget gets bigger then the previous. The projected defense budget in the future will be $118 billion less, but still more then the budget today.
If Republicans are going to protect their special interests like Boeing and Lockheed Martin the least they could do is be honest instead of paying petty politics that can easily be proven to be the BS it is. Trying to scare the uninformed. Do these people have no morals?
Kyl of "what's said is not intended to be factual" infamy, needs to stop talking.
He's locked up his retirement so who thinks he really cares?
So why didn't the Super Committee which had Republicans on it as well as Democrats not decide what to do? These people knew what was going to happen if no decision was made and it included cuts to the Defense Department as well as everything else.
Republicans love, love, love the military (industrial complex) but don't seem to care much about poor, middle class and elderly people.
President Obama said that when we make cuts EVERYONE must suffer. Those "my way or the highway" Senators want cuts everywhere but where THEY want to cut. Sorry fellas but you had your chance to make reasonable cuts and you dropped the ball.
Maybe if the Senators are willing to allow some tax increases for the extremely wealthy we can cut less in Defence department. Cuts alone will not solve the problem. They want cuts by George they'll get their cuts.
baldeagle11,
The Congress now wants the president to bail them out after they could not do what we pay them to do, legislate, compromise, make the hard vote. They set up and passd this deal last summer. Now they have to reap what they sowed.
Pathetic group of do nothing elected house and Senate members. No leadership in this branch of government...
OUCH!!!
I believe that you meant to say he "lent" his voice or "loaned" his voice...but not "lended".
neither....Boehner sniffled........."I'm going to lose yet another showdown with the President. And this one's the GOP's fault."
Call it what it really is, a scheme not a plan. They threatened to walk out of the Super Duper commitee over defense cuts before they even had their first meeting. Is this the 2% that Boehner didn't get when he said "we got 98% of what we wanted?"
So using one of their own talking points of old:
"The Republicans were FOR the automatic cuts to Defense before they were against them."
So let's flip the scenario...Democratic Senators put together a bill to Stop 100+Billion dollars from any of the major Entitlement Programs from taking affect in 2013. Pretty much guarantee the entire GOP Establishment...alive, dead, soon to be dead, whatever would be clammering to get face time in the front of a camera to speak about out how out of touch the President is with getting serious about cutting the spending of the Federal Government, blah, blah...
To bad. A deal is a deal. However, agree to raise taxes on the rich and you can get a better deal.
no "do-overs?"
Bring the troops home and gut the military. You do not have to get rid of all the troops, just stop the waste. Close 1/3 of the bases, especially in Japan, Germany, and Balkins.... new schools for everyone!!!
GOP asks for increase in military protection for Swiss and Bahamian Island bank accounts.
"While average Americans are being asked to fight in the military and defend the United States in places like Afghanistan and Iraq, our investments have gone virtually unprotected in foreign banks in places like Switzerland, the Bahama Islands, and Bahrain", GOP front runner Willard Mitt Romney argued. "The President needs to step up and show some leadership here, he needs to protect my tax avoidance accounts."
Republican dogma; an aircraft carrier in every homeowner's garage. That is as ridiculous as their position on not downsizing the American military. Republicans harangue, at all of us, to recognize America's financial difficulty. Apparently,for the unhinged radicals, this concern does not extend to the supplying of war-toys.
Republicans claim this grotesque outlay of precious capital is needed to keep us safe. But from what, an unknown future catastrophe. Our military, as it exists, is already bigger than the next nine combined. The logic is on the same level as Newt Gingrich's moon base, except the base would be less costly.
Funding this humongous unnecessary expense for some theoretical safety would require under-funding very real projects that impact all Americans substantially; such as infra-structure. Many real deaths have resulted and even more await the future. These are are the arteries of an economic system that feeds life into our country. This very-real issue can not be financially ignored to justify the theoretical and over exaggerated need for greater safety. A defense already ten-times larger than every other nation should be able to do the trick, don't you think?
What do you offer as a solution to all those people who will be out of work due to these cuts with unemployment as high as it is? Agreed we should have a gradual take down.
Maybe, but I think we would all be much better of to have a Congress that does their job instead of playing politics 24/7...
JMO
I am torn on this. Agree we need to bring troops home but living near a large Air Force base I know this will also mean a lot of my neighbors will be out of jobs adding to unemployment.
not if we shut the foreign bases down first....then, the ones in GOP districts/states.....these GOP politicians have been living off "government military welfare" for too long....
Closing some overseas bases and discharging some troops will add to the unemployment. Don't need to close bases here at home. Keeping the bases and troops will add to the deficit. Either way its going to cost you and me more money.
kingofmyhill,
As the GOP is so often willing to remind us, cutting spending does not cost us money, it saves us money. Spending money on bases in most other countries is not saving us anything. It is protecting wealthy investors (like Romney) who choose to invest their US made money outside of the US with a free government subsidy of military protection. It is "military/industrial welfare" for the super wealthy and their corporations.
Bases within the US are unnecessary for the most part and are a remnant of days when politicians clamored for bases in their districts because they couldn't attract private enterprise, most likely because their constituencies were too dumb to be employed, except in the military. Now, the red states are going to see what it's like when government programs are cut. Hope they like it.....
Sorry don't buy that partisan BS. My former home state of Illinois is as democrat as you can get and Scott Air Force base is the largest employer in that area of Illinois. Look at Cali, same way. It is not just the GOP.
Americans must share the pain.....starting with removing the Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest...
So much for the deal they struck earlier. Ah, politics, what I promise today, I will take back tomorrow.
No, no and no... A deal is a deal. There was a time when a word and a handshake meant something. But not now anymore. So after these war-hawking right wing-nuts played themselves with this sequester into a corner by refusing to compromise on the debt ceiling. They want to move the goal post yet again, and renege on their agreement. While continuing to instill fear mongoring and a doom and gloom type of atmosphere thruout the land. Yet what's amazing is that there are people out there still beliving what these chicken-hawks are saying. Instead of them telling us the real reason why they want the military war machine to stay intact. And just incase you all don't know why... It's where they get their filthy kick-back bribe money from. And it also provides these little bastions of wealth hiding countries (Caymen Islands and such) free police protection... So I say, let the wars end and lets cut some of the military's budget down to realistic numbers. And if the GOP/T-Pers want to start another war (Iran). Then let them have a plan to pay for their skirmishes. And not keeping them off the books either... Go Figure
Hey, Republican hawks---I have an idea---pay for the defense spending you must have by RAISING TAXES ON THE 1%. You know---the ones who are paying a 15% tax rate while working folks pay up to 35%. Let's not squeeze government employees by freezing their pay or making them do extra work by failing to replace workers who leave.
As Rev Al Sharpton has said "the republicans have blueberry pie all over their faces" Every president since WWII decreased the national debt until we get to our beloved "Ronald Regan" When George HW Bush broke with the supply siders, they dug his grave and buried him. In stepped Clinton, raised taxes and got the country on tract to be debt free by 2010. Then with Bush Jr. and his supply siders back in control and with their great wisdom decided; lets try this thing again. And there you have it we are in a bigger hole than after WWII. But thats ok the american people have a short memory we can blame the whole thing on Obama.
There was a compromise to avoid the cuts: it was called spending cuts and revenue increases. The GOP wouldn't take agree to their half. Now they are just looking around for a "less worthy" group to scape goat. They still come from the unfounded premise that some workers are just paid too much - but it's never the guys on Wall Street, because they are "successful." If we are looking for crazy ideas to pay for our empire, why don't we sell something that we don't need to one of our allies (whose sorry asses we are protecting), like the Virgin Islands. We wouldn't be firing anyone there, either.
The president's leadership abilities have an aura and precede him into this years presidential race in November. The U.S. economy gained 243,000 jobs in January, far above expectations. The unemployment rate dropped to 8.3%. This should be good new for the economy as the party of "NO" and the "Do Nothing" 112th Congress have failed to shut down completely the people's want ant need to live life. McCain continues to show his backside after his defeat in his presidential run. President Obama has leadership in his hand as he has directed, been instrumental and active in overseeing the taking out of Osama Bin Ladin, Atiyah abd al-Rahman, Anwar al-Awlaki(American Militant), and others including the removing of Moammar Khaddafy, while fighting off numerous Troubling Economic Antagonist(TEA) party efforts to run other than jobs producing legislation through Congress! Adopting the idea of debt repudiation is not just a "Conservative" ideal but a world wide ideal, just like "Love of Country" not Exclusive to Republicans or TEA party-ers!