Think there'll really be significant cuts coming out of the Republican House?
If the bipartisan debt supercommittee is unable to reach a deal by Thanksgiving, across-the-board cuts to defense spending could lead to the reinstatement of a military draft, the chairman of the House Armed Services Committee said Monday.
“We ... need to understand what it’s going to mean to keep an all-volunteer force,” Rep. Buck McKeon (R-Calif.) told Fox News Channel Monday. “Do we want to reinstitute the draft? Some of the cuts we’re talking about would take over 200,000 out of end strength from our military.”[...]
In Monday’s Fox News interview, McKeon noted that $465 billion has already been cut from defense spending under August’s debt deal and that if the trigger is pulled on across-the-board cuts, “it’ll be over another $500 billion.”
“We understand that defense has to be on the table, just as everything else is,” he said. “Out of a budget as large as the defense industry has, there has to be some way to save some money, but we have saved a lot. To try to break the back of the recession on the backs of the military means who’s going to have our back the next time we’re attacked?”
He also expressed concern about the effect that the across-the-board cuts would have on military pensions and other benefits.
This from the guy who says entitlements are the "main drivers" of the deficit. Military pensions and benefits we have to worry about, but it's fair game on anyone else expecting a pension or disability benefits.
This is McKeon blowing smoke to try to force Republican colleagues on the Catfood Commission II to do whatever they can to avoid more defense cuts. He's even willing to buck Grover Norquist and support some tax increases, or so he says. But even if the Super Congress fails, and the automatic triggers for cuts kick in, don't expect the defense cuts to last. Republicans will re-appropriate them so fast it'll make your head spin.
Which just makes McKeon's threats of a draft even more cynical.