On the recordJune 12, 2012
I would say to my colleague, the Senator from New Hampshire--because she mentioned that she and I both serve on the Budget Committee--that this perhaps could have been avoided had we passed a budget that dealt with title reform. The reason we have these huge cuts, these steep and unbalanced cuts to the defense budget, is because we punted on the Budget Control Act to the supercommittee, which didn't produce a result, and this triggered these across-the-board reductions in spending--half of which come out of the defense budget, as the Senator mentioned, a defense budget that represents only 20 percent of Federal spending. So proportionality here seems to be a real issue. Why would you gut the part of a budget from which you get the resources to keep your country safe and secure? Frankly, it comes back--in my view, at least--to the fact that now, for 3 consecutive years, the Budget Committee, on which the Senator and I both serve, has failed to produce a budget, spelling out a more reasonable and thoughtful plan for how to deal with these challenges as opposed to having this budget axe fall in this disproportionate way on our national security interests. I am curious as to the Senator's thoughts with regard to the reason why we are where we are today.
