DeFazio Notes GOP Efforts To Prevent Spending Cuts
Republicans in the House of Representatives have focused on convincing the American public that they are targeting waste in government spending without discrimination. Within Republicans’ own budget bills, however, are provisions to block spending cuts. For example, in H.R. 408, the so-called Spending Reduction Act, waste in Pentagon spending is specifically excluded from budget cuts.
U.S. Representative Peter DeFazio made note of this immense area of protected spending when he spoke on the House floor this week. DeFazio said:
“I’m all for looking at the expenditure side, and there are a lot of places I’d like to cut. Republicans have put some of them off-limits.
We can’t look anywhere in the Pentagon who is still acquiring through cost-plus contracts weapons that were designed to fight during the Soviet era. We’re wasting a fair amount of money over there. It’s well documented.
The Pentagon is the only agency of the Federal Government that can’t be audited. Every other agency is audited. Most of them get good grades. The Pentagon, they say maybe within 5 years they will have an accounting system that could be audited. Come on. And we’re going to exempt them from scrutiny and review and cuts?
The war in Afghanistan, they’ve exempted that from cuts. They want to spend about $200 billion this year on the wind-down in Iraq and the war in Afghanistan. But that’s off the table as far as Republicans are concerned.”
