Congressman John Campbell: GOP should propose defense cuts - 90.3 KPCC
Monday, 01 February 2010 23:00
President Obama’s proposed federal budget noses up close to $4 trillion. It includes a 3.4 percent boost in defense spending. KPCC’s Washington Correspondent Kitty Felde says a GOP House member from Orange County wants to put the defense budget on a diet.
Republican Congressman John Campbell of Irvine says the rising federal budget is putting the United States “perilously close to an economic calamity.” He says cuts need to come somewhere — and that includes the Pentagon.
The President proposes spending $708 billion on defense, plus an extra $159 billion to pay for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Congressman Campbell says Republicans should propose some reductions in that spending.
"I don’t think you can see defense cuts from Democrats," he says, "because I think they will be so excoriated for that that it can’t come from them. It’s got to come from some Republicans. And right now, I would love to tell you that there’s a lot of us that would be willing to stand behind those. But I’m not sure that that’s the case right now."
Campbell says Democrats will also have to start talking about cuts to social services in order to shrink the deficit.
