Michigan Senator Carl Levin, who just last month called for the spirit of political compromise, split from the debt reduction supercommittee along party lines over the issue of defense spending. According to the Detroit News, both Levin and Sen. John McCain are eager to see defense shielded from the automatic cuts that would take place November 23 in the event that the supercommittee fails to reach a deal.
Levin, who is chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, explained that the automatic cuts would slice $500 billion out of the defense budget. At a time when the committee is concerned about counterfeit electronic parts from China making their way into armaments and military planes, deep spending cuts are the last thing they want.
And yet, Levin is not anxious to start looking for ways to get around the doomsday device of the automatic cuts. Passed as part of this summer’s Budget Control Act, the cuts—as part of a process called sequestration—are intended to create pressure on the deficit reduction committee to meet their November 23 deadline to cut at least $1.2 trillion from the federal budget over the next 10 years.
“I don’t want to take the threat off of them,” Levin explained Monday alongside McCain.
If the supercommittee fails to reach their goal, the automatic spending cuts begin in 2013.
