Washington – Today, Representatives Steven Palazzo (MS), Allen West (FL), Marsha Blackburn (TN) and Jon Runyan (NJ), join Armed Services Committee Chairman Howard P. “Buck” McKeon in making an appeal to President Obama to reverse damaging sequestration cuts on the horizon by joining them in supporting H.R. 3662, the Down Payment to Protect National Security Act.
The Down Payment to Protect National Security Act would prevent a further round of cuts, beyond the $488 billion already announced by the President, from hitting our military as a result of sequestration and is fully offset. H.R. 3662 achieves the first year of savings required in sequestration through attrition in the federal workforce by 10% over ten years. This common sense approach to preserve our national security has over 30 co-sponsors in the House.
Defense Secretary Leon Panetta has said that under the large reductions of sequestration, “we would have to reduce the size of the military sharply. Rough estimates suggest after ten years of these cuts, we would have the smallest ground force since 1940, the smallest number of ships since 1915, and the smallest Air Force in its history.
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