McDonnell: Obama “needs to lead” to avert crippling defense cuts
In the aftermath of President Barack Obama’s two-day campaign swing through Virginia, Republican Gov. Bob McDonnell was on CNN’s “State of the Union” program this morning with Democratic Gov. Deval Patrick of Massachusetts.
Among other things, the two governors talked about the impact that automatic federal spending cuts will have on their states if Congress and the president fail to agree on a long-term deficit reduction package by the end of the year. The sequestration would include deep cuts in defense spending that could hurt Virginia’s economy. The National Association of Manufacturers estimates that Virginia could lose nearly 115,000 jobs in 2014 if the defense cuts occur.
“We’re very concerned about it,” McDonnell said before criticizing Congress and Obama.
“I think the president needs to lead on this, get Congress back and do something about sequestration,” said McDonnell, who spoke from Williamsburg, site of the National Governors Association annual meeting. “Look, we need to cut spending. We’re $16 trillion in debt, $5 trilion more because of the president’s lack of leadership, but we can’t do it this way and sacrifice the United States military.”
Patrick defended Obama and said Republicans in Congress are responsible for the standoff for refusing to consider tax increases.
By the way, “State of the Union” host Candy Crowley will be the moderator for Saturday’s debate between Virginia U.S. Senate candidates George Allen and Tim Kaine at The Homestead resort in Hot Springs.
–Michael Sluss
July 15, 2012 - 7:51 PM
I would suggest Governor McDonnell “needs to lead” and assure Medicaid expansion for low-income Virginians currently without health care.
The fact is, we need to CUT medicaid, and many of these other entitlements if we want to see any reduction in the deficit. Entitlement pending is the problem. Medicare, unemployment, welfare, food stamps all need to be brought into much more strict control.
We need the federal government to keep spending tons of money to protect jobs in VA. We need the federal government to stay out of our business and not mandate Medicaid expansion. Which is it governor? This is the simple hypocrisy of those that want to cut everything, all the time. Make those cuts, just as long as it doesn’t hurt me.
There is more waste, fraud and overspending in the Department of Defense than all other social programs combined! We need to cut defense by at least 1/3, stop wasting our time in these middle eastern countries trying to spread democracy to a culture that has no interest in such a notion. We have spent so much money building roads, schools and infrastructure in Iraq and Afghanastan than we have in our American cities. What a ridiculous set of priorities. Although I’m not a complete isolationist, we would be better off moving in that direction than to continue pumping money into that black hole that is the middle east.
#3 Why, Rick, don’t you know that every single one of those defense jobs and every single dollar that we spend for defense is absolutely necessary. All $711 billion of it.