Tea Party Caucus member says he'll accept defense cuts

By Pete Kasperowicz - 12/12/12 12:15 PM ET

Rep. Tom McClintock (R-Calif.), a member of the Tea Party Caucus, said Wednesday morning that he can accept cuts to the Pentagon, as lawmakers scramble to reach a deficit-reduction deal.

Speaking on the House floor, McClintock said the Department of Defense (DOD) would take the "brunt" of the coming sequester at the start of the year, but that the Pentagon is probably in a position to absorb these cuts.

"Does our defense spending really need to be higher, inflation-adjusted, than it was at the height of the Vietnam War when we faced down the Soviet Union and had 500,000 combat troops in the field?" he asked. "The sequester isn't stepping off a cliff, it is taking one step back from the cliff."

McClintock's comment puts him at odds with many other House Republicans who have been looking to spare DOD from the sequester.

But the California lawmaker is backing his party leaders on opposing President Obama’s push for high tax rates on the wealthy, arguing it would hit small-business owners at a time when the country can’t afford further job losses.

"The Congressional Budget Office estimates that Mr. Obama's tax increase on the so-called wealthy will actually throw 200,000 middle- and working-class families into unemployment," he said. "In their blind pursuit of an eat-the-rich ideology, Mr. Obama and his acolytes are imposing a policy that would utterly devastate hundreds of thousands of middle-class families who depend upon the jobs that these small businesses provide.

"And for what? To wring enough money to fund Mr. Obama's spending spree for a grand total of eight days," he continued.

McClintock said a simple look at how the country and the federal government have changed over the last 10 years shows that government spending is the problem, not tax levels. He said the population has increased 39 percent over the last decade, while federal revenues have increased 37 percent, about the same. But he said government spending has increased 64 percent.

McClintock spoke as the two parties continue to try negotiating a way around the "fiscal cliff," the combination of pending tax hikes and a $109 billion spending cut to the 2013 budget. House GOP leaders said Wednesday that the House could be in session up past Christmas to keep working on that deal.