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Posted on 11/20/2011 1:56:11 PM PST by MNJohnnie
Kentucky Republican Sen. Rand Paul said that, if the congressional supercommittee fails to reach a deficit-reduction agreement before Thanksgiving, that might be the best way to force the government to cut spending.
"It's sort of like telling your children that, if you don't clean up your mess — or else," Paul said today on CNN's "State of the Union." "Really, maybe we need the ‘or else’ because Congress isn't behaving the way they should be behaving. Maybe sequestration is our only way we will get any kind of cuts."
Sequestration, the term used for automatic spending cuts that will be forced if the committee misses its Thanksgiving eve deadline to settle on a plan to cut $1.2 trillion, will result in $600 billion in across-the-board reductions.
Paul said warnings by Defense Secretary Leon Panetta about imposed tax cuts harming the military are "an interpretation." He told host Candy Crowley that military spending is set to rise 23 percent over 10 years and, if an accord is not reached, 16 percent over the same time period.
"There will be no cuts in military spending," he said. "We're only cutting proposed increases in spending, so spending is still rising under any of these plans."
(Excerpt) Read more at newsmax.com ...
You just knew back then when they announced the formation of the ‘Stupor Committee’ to agree on ‘cuts’ that the incompetence would continue unabated. Surprises NOT!
I am so extraordinarily proud of the great people of the great Commonwealth of Kentucky for electing this new breed to the Senate of the USA.
If only the other 56 states were more like Kentucky.
It was all a joke, played on Mr. and Mrs. John Q.
Me too :-)
If they don’t stop spending, there will always be another vote to raise the debt ceiling. That will be the pass to head them off at.
I voted for Rand Paul.......one of the few times I think my vote actually packed a punch.
Agreed.
Where Y’all from?
Think you are right. Also if we started to make the items we used to make and get 25 million paying more taxes and buying things recovery would follow.
I completley agree with Rand Paul.
I hate to break it to Mr. Ron Paul, but there most certainly will be cuts to the military. As in about 10,000 USAF personnel, hundreds of fighters, and dozens of bombers and airlift. That’s just the Air Force, the Army’s cuts are much larger. Oh yeah, and that is WITHOUT the automatic cuts from failure to reach an agreement in the super committee.
If they don’t reach an agreement, those cuts double. The military will be gutted by about 23% in total combat capability and 9% in personnel. Can you say hollow force? Yes we can.
And yet we will still outspend all our potential enemies combined. We will spend a billion a piece on the littoral combat ship, we will spend a hundred million a piece on the P-8A and we’ll spend more than that for the F-35B.
That’s okay though. The USA will be bankrupt soon enough.
You raise good points, but that was not what I was responding to. Mr. Paul is wrong when he says no actual cuts in equipment or people. The fact is, we will take cuts. In bombers, fighters, helos and people in the USAF, and other things in the Navy and Army.
To minimize future cuts as holding the line or simply eliminating the standard 1.8% inflation amount (DoD standard for the last two budget builds) is factually incorrect. Nothing more, nothing less.
The viability of the F-35 (A CTOL version, B VTOL version and C Naval variant) littoral ship and P-8A are for others to argue. And sadly, I agree we will bankrupt if massive changes are not made. If cutting 25% of the DoD budget would do it, I’d recommend it myself. That isn’t going to cut it, and we both know that. Cutting 25% across the board in all US expenditures and eliminating or changing our future obligations are the only chance for a solution. In other words, a balanced budget.
I’m afraid we have to cut even more than 25%. Right now we overspend by about 40%. Even when the economy recovers, we can’t plan for the high revenue days of 2000 or 2007 (which is what the CBO assumes). I think we need to cut 20% from the military alone and more than that in other areas.
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