Gop News

GOP senators head to Nevada to warn of budget cuts

WASHINGTON (AP) — A Republican tour warning of impending military cuts is hitting another presidential battleground state, Nevada.

Three members of the Senate Armed Services Committee — John McCain of Arizona, Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire — plan to travel to Nellis Air Force Base on Monday and hold a town hall in North Las Vegas to discuss the impact of the cuts. Their offices planned to announce the trip on Friday.

“President Obama’s own secretary of defense called the looming defense cuts under budget sequestration ‘devastating,’ likening them to ‘shooting ourselves in the head,’ and yet to date, Congress and the Obama administration have done nothing to stop them from going into effect,” the senators said in a statement.

Last week, the three lawmakers traveled to the battleground states of Florida, North Carolina, Virginia and New Hampshire to sound a similar warning.

The tour is designed to increase political pressure on Obama and Congress to avert the automatic, across-the-board cuts of $110 billion to defense and domestic programs on Jan. 2. The Nevada stop also raises the political stakes for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev.

The GOP lawmakers have invited Reid and Nevada’s other senator, Republican Dean Heller, to attend the town hall.

Reid and other Democrats argue that Republicans easily could spare the military from the reductions in projected spending if they agree to raise taxes on the wealthiest Americans.

“By refusing to replace cuts with revenues, Republicans are putting millionaires ahead of the middle class and the military,” Reid has said.

Obama and congressional Republicans agreed to the reductions last August as part of a deficit-cutting agreement. A special bipartisan congressional committee was tasked with producing a plan to cut spending by $1.2 trillion over 10 years, or automatic cuts would kick in. The panel failed to reach a consensus and the countdown to the automatic cuts, known as sequester, began.

Graham said in a recent interview that Republicans are partly responsible.

“The failure of the supercommittee had to be at least anticipated, and the penalty to put the military at risk, devastating the finest military in our nation’s history, is so out of sync with the party of Ronald Reagan. It’s disturbing,” he said. “We share the blame for this, but at the end of the day we have to fix it.”

Groups of senators have discussed possible alternatives, but critical players aren’t involved in the negotiations. A solution is unlikely before the November elections, leaving the issue to a lame-duck congressional session later this year.

Meanwhile, the Congressional Budget Office issued a new estimate that the potential sequester would require a $94 billion cut from day-to-day agency budgets funded through appropriations bills. That’s a modest $4 billion cut from its most recent estimate. More details are due when the CBO releases its new budget and deficit estimates later this month.

ICYMI: RNC Chairman Reince Priebus on ABC’s “This Week”

“This president, is the head of this country and he has not fulfilled the mission.”

WASHINGTON–This morning, Republican National Committee (RNC) Chairman Reince Priebus appeared on ABC’s “This Week” with George Stephanopoulos to discuss the anniversary of America’s credit downgrade and the lies and divisiveness of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.

On Harry Reid’s Baseless Attacks On Mitt Romney: “I’m Not Going To Respond To A Dirty Liar.”

CHAIRMAN PRIEBUS: “Do we want to continue down the direction of unemployment above 8% for countless months? This president hasn’t fulfilled the mission hasn’t fulfilled the promises of three or four years ago. Do we want to continue that direction? Heck no. As far as Harry Reid is concerned, listen, you might want to go down that road, I’m not going to respond to a dirty liar, who hasn’t filed a single page of tax returns himself. He complains about money but lives in the Ritz Carlton here, down the street. If this is on the agenda, I’m not going to go there. This is just a made-up issue. The fact that we’re going to spend any time talking about it is just ridiculous.”

STEPHANOPOULOS: “You just called him a dirty liar. Do you stand by that? Do you think Harry Reid is a dirty liar?”

CHAIRMAN PRIEBUS: “I just said it.”

STEPHANOPOULOS: “So, what do you want from him right now?”

CHAIRMAN PRIEBUS:“Listen, this president has a job to do and Harry Reid has a job to do. We have an opportunity in this country to save the very idea of America. To bring back the days of liberty, freedom, the American dream and the fact is, we’re just — we’re not doing well right now as an economy. This president, is the head of this country and he has not fulfilled the mission and he hasn’t lived up to the promises that he made to the people of this country. And it’s hard to believe that the president of 2008, when he campaigned and said that he was going to bring America together, that he would trot out Harry Reid and try to divide this country and spread this division and hatred, it’s ridiculous, wrong and it’s untrue. It’s going to hurt the president…”

Click here to view: http://goo.gl/ku2g4