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Politics : President Barack Obama -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: stockman_scott who wrote (95667)	6/30/2011 11:36:47 AM
From: tejek	Respond to of 149317

Defense cuts appear likely as pressure grows on debt deal By Erik Wasson and John T. Bennett - 06/30/11 05:45 AM ET Defense cuts proposed by the White House are unlikely to keep a debt-ceiling deal from passing Congress, sources say. As few as 30 House Republicans would likely consider voting against a debt-ceiling deal that cuts $300 billion from security spending, according to a GOP aide. The relatively small bloc of opposition to the level of defense cuts floated by the White House suggests the GOP’s traditional opposition to reducing military spending has taken a backseat to warding off tax increases. “Robust defense spending and lower taxes have been two hallmarks of the Republican Party for years,” one former GOP House staffer said. “And those two things are going to be in direct competition with one another” in the debt talks. Given a choice between lopping funding for the military and increasing taxes — two options for reducing the deficit long seen as anathema to the party — most House Republicans seem ready to pull the lever against the Pentagon, if the cuts are in the White House range. “Over the last few weeks, we’ve seen quite clearly that the Republicans in the House are not uniformly wedded to high levels of defense spending,” said Gordon Adams, who ran defense and national security budgeting for the Clinton White House. “But Republicans are very much uniformly wedded to no tax increases. … I think they’ll ultimately come down on the side of no tax cuts.” Defense sources say the fiscal-minded class of House freshmen has brought an openness to defense cuts that is pulling the GOP in a new direction. “All it would take is for the number of freshmen that would vote for big defense cuts to get up past 70, to approach 80,” a defense source said, “and the traditional defense supporters will be screwed.” During discussions over raising the debt ceiling, the White House has floated $300 billion in security spending cuts on top of $1 trillion in domestic cuts over a decade. read more.......... thehill.com