WLFI - Budget Cuts Loom as Super Committee Fails

News Article

By Dan Klein

Monday night marks the failure of a nearly 3-month long process.

In exchange for Congress raising the country's debt ceiling, a 12-person so-called "Super Committee", made up evenly of Democrats and Republicans, was supposed to find $1.2 trillion in deficit reductions.

With their failure, laws require across-the-board spending cuts to domestic programs and the Pentagon.

Rep. Todd Rokita met with more than 40 members of the White County Tea Party Patriots in Monticello Monday night.

The Republican went through a presentation on the nation's debt, then answered a variety of questions from the audience.

He told NewsChannel 18 he didn't have high expectations for the Super Committee's success. He supports the automatic spending cuts as an alternative to their failure.

However, already some Republicans have discussed trying to repeal that automatic trigger.

"I'm going to work my hardest against it," said Rep. Rokita. "A deal is a deal. Even though they are complaining that it unfairly cuts into defense, look, defense is a 700 billion, that billion with a b, dollar a year operation. There is waste in it."

Rokita said the next step will be fighting to make sure the automatic triggers do take place.

He helped push for a balanced budget amendment that was defeated last week.

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