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Barney Frank: Press Obama on Defense Cuts
George Zornick on March 27, 2012 - 12:38 PM ET
Ask any defense lobbyist in Washington—spending on defense is threatened like no time in recent memory. Under the Budget Control Act, the budget for defense will be subject to a strict cap (a process known as sequestration) beginning in 2014 and lasting until 2021. This would necessarily create steep, across-the-board reductions in defense spending.
But nobody on either side of the aisle is enamored with this defense cap. The House GOP budget plan, written by Paul Ryan, does away with the sequester, and not only protects defense spending from cuts, but boosts the level of spending. House Speaker John Boehner plans a bill this year to officially junk the sequester.
As we’ve been flagging here for weeks, President Obama’s budget also does away with the defense sequestration. This has concerned some liberals—since an overall cap on discretionary spending will presumably remain in place, many worry that removing the limit on defense will lead Congress to take a vast majority of the reductions from social programs and leave defense untouched.
This morning I spoke with Representative Barney Frank, a leading voice in Congress for cutting defense spending. (He has frequently advocated a 25 percent reduction in the Pentagon budget, a goal he repeated at a public event before we spoke). Frank blasted the Ryan/Boehner plans for defense spending as “outrageous”—but he was not concerned with Obama’s removal of the defense sequester per se.
More: http://www.thenation.com/blog/167063/barney-frank-press-obama-defense-cuts
Ask any defense lobbyist in Washington—spending on defense is threatened like no time in recent memory. Under the Budget Control Act, the budget for defense will be subject to a strict cap (a process known as sequestration) beginning in 2014 and lasting until 2021. This would necessarily create steep, across-the-board reductions in defense spending.
But nobody on either side of the aisle is enamored with this defense cap. The House GOP budget plan, written by Paul Ryan, does away with the sequester, and not only protects defense spending from cuts, but boosts the level of spending. House Speaker John Boehner plans a bill this year to officially junk the sequester.
As we’ve been flagging here for weeks, President Obama’s budget also does away with the defense sequestration. This has concerned some liberals—since an overall cap on discretionary spending will presumably remain in place, many worry that removing the limit on defense will lead Congress to take a vast majority of the reductions from social programs and leave defense untouched.
This morning I spoke with Representative Barney Frank, a leading voice in Congress for cutting defense spending. (He has frequently advocated a 25 percent reduction in the Pentagon budget, a goal he repeated at a public event before we spoke). Frank blasted the Ryan/Boehner plans for defense spending as “outrageous”—but he was not concerned with Obama’s removal of the defense sequester per se.
More: http://www.thenation.com/blog/167063/barney-frank-press-obama-defense-cuts
We need to counter the Ryan Plan and put defense budget cuts on the table. If there was ever a time we could sell a slash in the DoD budget, this is the year...
5 replies
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...but at this point, I think we need to realize that Mittens is a God-send. 
