Coming Defense Spending Cuts May Backfire on GOP

The GOP likes to wrap itself in patriotism when its not wrapping itself in the cloak of religion.  And in this area with its large number of military personnel, many in the military and their families seem to have a knee jerk reaction of mindlessly supporting the GOP.  Even when it is not in  their best interest to do so (a similar argument can be made for working class Americans who vote for the GOP which despises them).  That blind allegiance may be about to come home to roost if a budget agreement isn't worked out because automatic spending cuts will soon be triggered and defense spending will get hammered.  For Virginia, this is a huge issue since so much of the state's economy relies on defense related federal spending.  Virginians may be about to get what they asked for by supporting demagogues in the GOP like Eric Cantor.  A piece in the New York Times looks at the results of GOP intransigence that may be about to hit.  Here are excerpts:

Senator Lindsey Graham rode last week like Paul Revere from South Carolina’s wooded upstate to its gracious Low country to its sweltering midsection, offering a bureaucratic rallying cry for his military-heavy state — the defense cuts are coming. 

On Jan. 2, national security is set to receive a heavy blow if Congress fails to intervene. That is when a 10-year, $600 billion, across-the-board spending cut is to hit the Pentagon, equal to roughly 8 percent of its current budget. 

Mr. Graham’s colleagues in the Senate have been strangely quiet about the impending cuts, set in motion last summer when the Budget Control Act ended an impasse over raising the nation’s borrowing limit with a deal designed to hurt both parties if they did not strike an agreement later on. A special select committee was assigned to come up with at least $1.2 trillion in deficit reduction over 10 years. If it failed, the cuts would come automatically, half to national security, half to domestic programs.  It failed, and the reckoning is approaching.

[N]no one knows what “sequestration,” the term for the automatic cuts, will look like, not lawmakers, not the military. But Republicans who helped create it as a bludgeon to force a bipartisan budget accord are now desperate to undo it. Indeed, some of the loudest advocates for blocking the cuts — like Representative Howard P. McKeon of California, chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, and Senator John McCain of Arizona, the ranking Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee — voted to create them;  .   .   .   .  

But the threat they created may be doing its job. Mr. Graham is openly talking about revenue increases to offset the costs. Even South Carolina’s ardently conservative House members, Mick Mulvaney, Joe Wilson and Jeff Duncan, said last week that they were ready to talk. 

On its face, the automatic cuts do not sound that bad. If they are put into effect  .  .  .  .  operations and maintenance, research and development, procurement, fuel, military construction — would face immediate cuts as deep as 13 percent .  .  .  .  

Mr. Graham warned the citizens of Beaufort that the Marines would have to shut either their Parris Island or San Diego training camps, and would face the same choice between their airfields at Beaufort or Cherry Point, N.C. In fact, under the law, all bases face the same cuts because Congress has prohibited base closings.   The dire warnings are not coming from Mr. Graham alone. They are coming at least as loudly from Leon E. Panetta, the secretary of defense. 

“The consistent pattern here is they [the GOP] have chosen to defend special interest tax breaks over defense spending,” Mr. Van Hollen said. “They made that choice.”

For now, Democrats and Republicans are waiting for the other side to blink. And the pressure may be working. Mr. Graham said the sentiment for raising revenues by closing tax loopholes or imposing higher fees on items like federal oil leases is expanding in his party.  Asked about the “no new taxes” pledge almost all Republicans have signed, he [Graham] shrugged: “I’ve crossed the Rubicon on that.”

The GOP has played games with people's lives - all to avoid tax increases for the very rich and large corporations.  Meanwhile, the rest of us have been paying the price.  It's time for this GOP agenda to end.