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United States News Title: Republicans Push To Stop Automatic Spending Cuts WASHINGTON | Thu Feb 2, 2012 11:49am EST (Reuters) - The U.S. military would be spared from automatic spending cuts set for next year under a proposal some top Senate Republicans offered on Thursday that instead would save money by reducing the federal workforce. Senator John McCain, senior Republican on the Armed Services Committee, assistant Senate Republican leader Jon Kyl and four others offered legislation that would eliminate the first installment of $1.2 trillion in automatic spending cuts over a decade. The legislation faces an uphill battle in the Senate, led by Democrats likely to oppose the federal work force cuts. The White House also opposes efforts to circumvent the across-the-board spending cuts at the center of a budget brawl between Democratic President Barack Obama and Republicans in Congress during last year's fight to increase the U.S. debt limit. The proposal by the half dozen Senate Republicans would let the military and most domestic programs avoid the automatic cuts that are to start taking effect in January 2013. Some $127 billion would be saved instead by scaling back the federal workforce and freezing its pay. "I believe that the cuts ... aimed at the Department of Defense are a threat to our nation's security and we are opposed to that draconian action," McCain said at a news conference. The move is designed to buy time for lawmakers to decide on more orderly reductions than the across-the-board cuts put in place after a special congressional committee failed to develop a deficit reduction plan last year. Many analysts believe Congress will step in, possibly in a session after November's presidential and congressional elections, to stop or change the scheduled spending cuts that many sees as too blunt an approach to cutting deficits. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta has warned of dire effects from the scheduled $600 billion in defense cuts on top of some $487 billion already being sliced from projected spending over the next decade. The Pentagon has initiated a round of reductions after a review to align spending with U.S. strategic interests. Panetta has said the Pentagon would have to start over to design a strategy if Congress does not act to stop the automatic cuts. The Republicans' legislation also would head off cuts to domestic programs scheduled to take effect in 2013, which its sponsors hope will attract Democratic support. SMALLER WORK FORCE The Senate Republicans' bill calls for shrinking the federal work force by 5 percent through attrition. Agencies would only be able to hire two people for every three people who retire or leave government employment. It also calls for extending a pay freeze for federal workers until June 2014. The current freeze expires at the end of this year and Obama has proposed a 0.5 percent pay increase next year. In the Republican-led House of Representatives, Armed Services Committee Chairman Howard McKeon has introduced similar legislation that would slash the federal workforce by 10 percent, but that bill has not advanced. Republicans are likely to point to a recent report by the Congressional Budget Office that showed many federal workers without advanced degrees earn on average higher salaries and benefits than those in the private sector. Also, Panetta's concerns that the automatic cuts on top of other reductions in defense spending would "inflict severe damage to our national defense for generations" could help build support for the Republicans' bill. The $1.2 trillion in automatic federal cuts were linked to an increase in U.S. borrowing authority opposed by Republicans, many aligned with the conservative, small-government Tea Party movement. The bitter fight prompted the U.S. credit ratings agency Standard & Poor's to downgrade the federal government's top AAA rating for borrowing for the first time. With U.S. budget deficits topping $1 trillion for the last three years and the national debt exceeding $15 trillion, the ratings agencies and economists are worried Washington is courting a financial disaster similar to turmoil facing many European countries. Any move by Congress to dismantle the automatic spending cuts could further erode the confidence of credit rating agencies, which are hoping U.S. lawmakers can agree on $4 trillion in deficit reductions over a decade - well beyond the approximately $2 trillion enacted last year. (Reporting By Donna Smith; Editing by Todd Eastham and Vicki Allen)
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#1. To: Brian S (#0)
Yep, they are no different than the Democrats -- big government hypocrites all.
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