Republicans traditionally say, 'oh, we'll cut domestic spending, but we won't touch the military.' The liberals - the ones who are good - will say, 'oh, we'll cut the military, but we won't cut domestic spending.'
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
My Republican colleagues say, Let's do the cuts first. The Democrats say, Let's do spending first. I'd like to do both simultaneously.
It is being alleged that the Federal Government is 'cutting' spending. In fact, we are not 'cutting' anything. Defense spending under this budget would rise by 4.3 percent over last year. Other discretionary spending would also rise.
In Congress, while the House's proposed defense budget calls for significant increases, it also cuts 11 billion dollars from veterans spending - including healthcare and disability pay. Be clear: we can't equate spending on veterans with spending on defense.
The American people say, 'Don't touch Social Security, don't touch Medicare, don't cut defense.' That's 84 percent of the federal budget.
If you refuse to acknowledge that there is any waste that can be culled from the military budget, you are a big-government conservative, and you cannot lay claim to balancing the budget.
My point is cutting spending shouldn't be reliant on the debt limit though. It's something we have to do. The good news for America is, leaders in both parties, the president, believe that we have to have significant deficit reduction. So the intent is there. And I think what America is going to demand is that our leaders come together.
When people see the budget, they're going to say, 'Oh, my God, I wanted a tax cut, but I didn't know what you were going to do to health care and to Medicare and national defense.'
The polls are with us on this. They say the American people, more than anything, want to see spending cuts rather than tax increases.
We're going to have to raise revenues in some form or fashion, and we're going to have to cut spending, including entitlements of all kind, including the military. We all know this. Lets get on with it.
I have spoken to Donald Trump about this. He understands the dramatic budget cuts our military has faced.