Golden Leads Group of 12 Blue Dog Members to Denounce Potential $75 Billion Cut to Defense Budget
WASHINGTON — Joined by 11 of his colleagues in the Blue Dog Coalition, Congressman Jared Golden (ME-02) wrote to Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy this week to urge him to abandon an agreement that could lead to $75 billion in defense spending cuts. The cuts are the likely result of budget concessions McCarthy made in his quest to win over hardline members of the Republican House Conference. The Blue Dog Coalition endorsed the letter.
“Indiscriminate cuts to the defense budget are a threat to our national security. A $75 billion decrease would hamper our ability to assist Ukraine and fly in the face of the tradition of bipartisan defense consensus and supporting freedom and democracy in conjunction with our allies,” said Congresswoman Mikie Sherrill, Chair of the Blue Dog National Security Task Force. “We can and should review our defense budget in a responsible and deliberate way, but these cuts, demanded by a small group of extreme members, signal a concerning shift away from our democratic values.”
Representatives Sanford Bishop (GA-02), Lou Correa (CA-46), Henry Cuellar (TX-28), Vicente Gonzalez (TX-34), Jim Costa (CA-21), Mikie Sherrill (NJ-11), Ed Case (HI-1), Abigail Spanberger (VA-07), Josh Gottheimer (NJ-05), Wiley Nickel (NC-13), and Donald Davis (NC-01) joined Rep. Golden in sending the letter.
“A $75 billion dollar cut to the defense budget would imperil our national security at a time in which the United States confronts an unprecedented array of global challenges; including an increasingly powerful and authoritarian China determined to supplant the U.S. as the dominant global political, economic, and military power, an aggressive Russia that threatens U.S. interests and which continues its unprovoked and illegal invasion of Ukraine, and rogue states North Korea and Iran that continue to develop nuclear weapons capabilities,” the members of the Blue Dog Coalition wrote in their letter.
Read the letter in full here.
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