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Here's a great debunking of many of the foreign policy claims Sen.
By
Zachary Roth
Here’s a great debunking of many of the foreign policy claims Sen. John McCain is making right now from the podium in Tampa, compoiled by Heather Hurlburt of the National Security Network, a Washington think tank.
On the key issue of attacking Obama over defense cuts, Hurlburt writes:
The Pentagon budget submitted to Congress this year actually forecasts a small net growth over ten years; the “half a trillion dollars in cuts” represent cuts to the previously-planned rate of increase. This is a cut like I promise you a 10% raise and then give you 5%. You can read factchecker agonizing over it here.
Half a trillion dollars certainly sounds “vast.” That sum over ten years represents about 10% of Pentagon spending. Compared tobuilddowns of 12-25% after World War II, Korea, Vietnam and the Cold War, however, it’s pretty tame.
And then there’s sequester, which McCain implicitly and Romney explicitly have laid at the President’s door. However, both this year’s installment of the “half a trillion in cuts” and the possibility of an across-the-board, automatic cut to Pentagon spending were devised and enacted by bipartisan majorities in Congress, including… Paul Ryan and John McCain. The logic of how this is Obama’s fault still escapes me.
