Rep. Jim Jordan, a member of the conservative House Freedom Caucus and the incoming chair of the Judiciary Committee, said Sunday that “everything” must be on table to cut in order to reign in federal spending — including the Pentagon’s budget.
“We’ve got a $32 trillion debt, everything has to be on the table. We’re on pace to spend $500, $600 billion in debt payments just to deal with interest payments,” Mr. Jordan, Ohio Republican, said on “Fox News Sunday.” “Frankly, maybe if we would focus our military spending on the soldiers and not having so many generals — the ratio of general officers to enlisted individuals now is so out of whack.”
House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, California Republican, made a concession to win over conservative holdouts in his bid for the speakership that the chamber would cap spending at fiscal 2022 levels in the next budget due Oct. 1, teeing up debate over what funding should be slashed.
Some conservatives have increasingly argued that military spending, particularly funding that goes to contractors, has become bloated and wasteful, a view that mirrors that of many Democrats.
“If we’d focus on getting rid of all the ‘woke’ in our military, we’d have the money we need to make sure our troops get the pay raise they deserve, we’d have the weapons systems and training that needs to be done so that we’re ready to deal with our adversaries around the planet,” Mr. Jordan said.
He also suggested that aid to Ukraine should be on the chopping block, a foreign policy issue over which Republicans disagree.
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“Frankly, we’d better look at the money we send to Ukraine as well and say, ‘How can we best spend the money to protect America?’” Mr. Jordan said.
Those who support the assistance, more than $100 billion of which the U.S. has provided since Russia invaded Ukraine last year, argue that it’s cheaper to help defeat the Moscow’s advances now rather than getting involved militarily in the future if it wins the war and becomes emboldened.
Source:Washington Times
