Republican John Kyl Threatens To Quit Super Committee If Defense Cuts Are On The Table

Senator Jon Kyl (R-AZ)

At a luncheon held shortly after the first meeting of the super committee by the American Enterprise Institute and the Heritage Foundation, Arizona Sen. Jon Kyl said he is “off of the committee if we are going to talk about further defense cuts.”
CNN reports that Kyl said cuts should come from “entitlement” programs like Medicare and Social Security, not defense spending.”
This is a real non-starter for a committee that is charged with cutting $1.5 trillion in spending. Kyl should be replaced with a Republican who is at least willing to put defense cuts on the table. Social Security and Medicare have nothing to do with our debt problem. Defense, however, does.
Ten years of war have produced an inflated national debt and trillions of dollars have been spent. Social Security and Medicare funds on the other hand, are paid for through FICA taxes and monthly premiums. Social Security has a two trillion dollar surplus and does not account for one penny of the budget. If anything needs to be cut from the budget, it’s defense spending. Even if we cut the defense budget in half, it would still be the largest defense budget in the world.
At a luncheon held shortly after the first meeting of the super committee by the American Enterprise Institute and the Heritage Foundation, Arizona Sen. Jon Kyl said he is “off of the committee if we are going to talk about further defense cuts.”