Vice presidential hopeful Paul Ryan told defense contractors yesterday he and Mitt Romney would vigorously support the military and also stop looming defense cuts in January if Congress has not done so by then.
Ryan, whom observers have criticized for having scant national-security experience, expressed nearly unlimited support for the military at a defense-industry roundtable event in Fayetteville, N.C.
As the chairman of the House Budget committee, Ryan has proposed larger Pentagon budgets for the coming years than President Barack Obama has and also pushed legislation to stop so-called sequestration defense cuts of $500 billion from starting next January. Still, multiple analysts have said they are waiting for a coherent view of how Ryan and Romney, the presumptive GOP presidential nominee, together would approach military budgeting and policy.
Ryan said at a gathering at the Partnership for Defense Innovation in Fayetteville, N.C. yesterday that he and Romney would “embrace peace through strength.”
“We’re going to have a budget that respects the mission that we’re giving our military so that they have a world-class Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, the best technology, the best benefits, and a national military that is unrivaled in the world, because that is how we extend peace and prosperity for not only our generation but the next generation,” he said.
He slammed the Democratic-controlled Senate for not taking up the Sequester Reconciliation Replacement Act that the Republican-led House passed in May. The bill would offset the first year of decade-long sequestration cuts, in 2013, by cutting funding for politically sensitive areas including food stamps and health care.
The politically unpopular sequestration spending reductions, which total $1.2 trillion when non-defense cuts are included, were triggered by the enactment of the Budget Control Act of 2011 and subsequent failure of a congressional committee to agree on a plan to reduce the deficit by $1.2 trillion. Many Democrats and Republicans in Congress don’t want the sequestration reductions to start next year but can’t agree on an alternate deficit-cutting solution.
Ryan said yesterday that with the Sequester Reconciliation Replacement Act going nowhere in the Senate he is waiting for the White House to detail how the potential cuts would impact the Pentagon and other agencies. Obama signed legislation this month requiring that by early September his administration share those details with Congress.
Ryan said if Congress cannot agree this year on “a sequester-replacement bill,” he and Romney want to use a special procedure in January to thwart the cuts.
“In January our intention is, if we don’t fix it in the lame-duck (session of Congress after the November election and before the end of the year), is to fix it retroactively once a new session of Congress takes place,” Ryan said. “Now, we believe that we have a procedural way in the Senate to advance that legislation very quickly and get it to the next president of the United States, who I believe is going to be Mitt Romney, to pass it into law and retroactively prevent that sequester from taking place in January.”
Ryan added: “That’s our plan, and hopefully knowing that’s that is our plan, that will make it easier for us to get this done in the lame-duck before it takes place in January in the first place.”
Obama told The Virginian-Pilot newspaper in an interview published Tuesday that he opposes the sequestration cuts and wants Congress to agree on a wide-reaching plan to replace all 10 years of the $1.2 trillion sequestration cuts. He called on congressional Democrats to agree to more spending reductions across the government and on Republicans to allow tax cuts for wealthy Americans to end.
The Obama campaign charged yesterday Ryan and House Republicans are to blame for Congress’ inability thus far to stop the looming sequestration.
“If Congressman Ryan were serious about avoiding the automatic defense cuts he decried in North Carolina today, he’d tell Mitt Romney and his fellow Republicans in Congress to work with the president to achieve balanced deficit reduction that includes asking millionaires and billionaires to pay their fair share–as the plan President Obama has put forward does,” Obama spokesman Danny Kanner said in a statement. “But he’s not. In fact, Congressman Ryan voted for the (Budget Control Act) agreement he criticized today, and he walked away from a balanced deficit reduction plan last summer because he thought it would help the president’s re-election prospects.”
Meanwhile, Mackenzie Eaglen, a fellow at the conservative American Enterprise Institute think tank, said she does not see Ryan’s comments about stopping sequestration in January as “game-changing.” She noted Ryan said he wants Congress and Obama to agree on a plan this year to stop the start of the sequestration cuts next year.
“If this does not happen, however, it seems a Romney administration is committed to quickly reversing the automatic cuts and making the resolution of sequestration a top agenda item for the first months in office,” Eaglen said over e-mail.
Kanner, the Obama campaign spokesman, pointed out that Romney has said he doesn’t want Congress to craft a long-term plan to replace sequestration this fall and would rather craft his own replacement solution in office next year. The Republican candidate made the comments in May and June newspaper interviews.