MRoCkEd
11-05-2010, 08:47 AM
http://thinkprogress.org/2010/11/05/coburn-cows-defense-indefensible/
Coburn breaks with many of his Republican colleagues — and his party’s own much-touted “Pledge For America” — by calling for cuts to the defense budget. He writes that “Republicans also should resist pressure to take all defense spending cuts off the table.” He advocates for taking “common sense steps like freezing defense spending until the Pentagon can pass an audit and remove all nondefense spending from the Pentagon’s budget.” Coburn concludes that “taking defense spending off the table is indefensible. We need to protect our nation, not the Pentagon’s sacred cows“:
--SNIP--
As Coburn notes with his praise for Senator-elect Rand Paul (R-KY), he isn’t the only Senate Republican calling for reining in the military budget. Paul told PBS’s Gwen Ifil last month that that cutting defense spending “has to be on the table.” The same month, Pennsylvania candidate Pat Toomey criticized Congress for voting for “programs the Pentagon doesn’t even want.” The week before, Illinois Senator-elect Mark Kirk said we need “across-the-board” reductions in defense spending. Earlier that same month, Johnny Isakson (R-GA) told a local news station that reducing the deficit “begins with the Department of Defense.” And two weeks ago, Bob Corker (R-TN) said on CNBC that defense cuts have to be “on the table” because there’s “a lot of waste there.”
Coburn breaks with many of his Republican colleagues — and his party’s own much-touted “Pledge For America” — by calling for cuts to the defense budget. He writes that “Republicans also should resist pressure to take all defense spending cuts off the table.” He advocates for taking “common sense steps like freezing defense spending until the Pentagon can pass an audit and remove all nondefense spending from the Pentagon’s budget.” Coburn concludes that “taking defense spending off the table is indefensible. We need to protect our nation, not the Pentagon’s sacred cows“:
--SNIP--
As Coburn notes with his praise for Senator-elect Rand Paul (R-KY), he isn’t the only Senate Republican calling for reining in the military budget. Paul told PBS’s Gwen Ifil last month that that cutting defense spending “has to be on the table.” The same month, Pennsylvania candidate Pat Toomey criticized Congress for voting for “programs the Pentagon doesn’t even want.” The week before, Illinois Senator-elect Mark Kirk said we need “across-the-board” reductions in defense spending. Earlier that same month, Johnny Isakson (R-GA) told a local news station that reducing the deficit “begins with the Department of Defense.” And two weeks ago, Bob Corker (R-TN) said on CNBC that defense cuts have to be “on the table” because there’s “a lot of waste there.”