Defense industry in late surge to stop spending cuts

[xchrom]

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/02/01/us-usa-fiscal-cuts-defense-idUSBRE9101D820130201

(Reuters) - An anxious U.S. defense industry has launched a new push to galvanize lawmakers who are doing little to stop the massive federal spending cuts due to kick in on March 1.

Defense contractors started a fresh surge of letter-writing campaigns and meetings with U.S. officials to plead their case about why the billions of dollars in cuts known as sequestration would harm not only the defense sector but the larger economy.

The cuts are already law, but when Congress put them there last year, lawmakers never intended for them to happen. The thinking was that they would be so abhorrent that Democrats and Republicans would come up with an alternative budget-cutting plan.

But no plan has emerged, and lately some Republicans have been saying they are willing to let sequestration take effect. If Congress doesn't act by March 1, some $85 billion in spending will be cut, about half of it from domestic spending and half from defense, this year.

[woo me with science]

1. What about the $633 BILLION military funding bill

that was passed by the Democratic Senate in December?

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10022060449

[dballance]

2. I Hardly Think Cutting The Defense Budget by 7% is Going to "Gut" the Military or Compromise...

our readiness to take on threats. We'll still have the largest defense budget of any developed nation and will still spend more than the 12 or 13 next largest defense budgets of other countries combined. We will still have more ships and firepower than any other developed nation. But, no, the GOP wants to cut public assistance like food stamps to help avoid defense department sequestration cuts. Shows you once again they're really working for their corporate masters in the MIC rather than the people in their districts.

So sorry Defense Department and defense contractors. It's time for you to start sharing in that "shared sacrifice" we're all supposed to be happy about.