John Boehner 8TH DISCTRICT OF OHIO

As the commander-in-chief of America’s Armed Forces, President Obama is ultimately responsible for our military readiness – yet he has offered no plan to stop military cuts that his own Secretary of Defense says would ‘hollow out’ our military force and degrade its ability to protect the United States.

In a new budget released today by Chairman Paul Ryan (R-WI), House Republicans have offered a plan to achieve the full $1.2 trillion in additional deficit reduction required by the Budget Control Act without hurting our nation’s defense.

HOW WE GOT HERE

After the president asked for a blank check to keep spending and borrowing, Congress forged a bipartisan agreement – the Budget Control Act – to ensure that any debt-limit increase was accompanied by a greater amount of spending reduction.  The Budget Control Act called for deficit reduction in three stages – immediate discretionary spending caps, a Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction (JSCDR), and an automatic spending reduction in the event the joint select committee failed. 

In the wake of the committee’s failure to achieve its deficit-reduction goals, discretionary spending levels will be automatically reduced by $98 billion on January 2, 2013 – and our armed forces will bear the brunt of the cuts.

COMMON GROUND

There is bipartisan agreement on the devastation to America’s national security that would result if these deep cuts go into effect, and both parties have expressed a desire to avoid this outcome by cutting spending elsewhere.  Take a look at the testimony of President Obama’s Secretary of Defense, Leon Panetta:

• Secretary Panetta Says “We’d Be Shooting Ourselves in the Head” With Proposed Defense Cuts. “Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina set the stage by asking Panetta what would happen if automatic triggers went into effect. ‘If this supercommittee can’t find the $1.4 trillion they’re charged with finding in terms of savings over the next decade, there will be a trigger pulled to achieve that savings, and $600 billion will come out of the Defense Department ... on top of what you're trying to do,’ he said to Panetta. ‘If we pull that trigger, will we be shooting ourselves in the foot?’  ‘We'd be shooting ourselves in the head,’ Panetta replied.  Panetta says that defense cuts above the original $450 billion are unacceptable, and that if the supercommittee needs to find more cuts, it should look outside defense, at programs like Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security. (National Public Radio, 10/24/13)

• Secretary Panetta Says Defense Cuts Would “Do Catastrophic Damage to Our Military.” “I want to close by cautioning strongly against further cuts to defense, particularly with the mechanism that’s been built into the debt ceiling agreement called sequester. This mechanism would force additional cuts to defense of about $500 billion, or roughly $1 trillion in total – cuts that in my view would do catastrophic damage to our military, hollowing out the force and degrading its ability to protect the country.” (Testimony before the House Armed Services Committee, 10/13/11)

HOUSE REPUBLICANS TAKING ACTION

Despite bipartisan agreement on the challenge, only House Republicans – through this budget – have proposed a solution to address it.  Our budget reprioritizes sequester savings to focus on the problem - which is government spending - and to protect national security from deep and indiscriminate cuts. 

House Republicans have now offered a plan to protect our Armed Forces.  The Obama administration agrees on the problem – but where is their solution?