This afternoon, Senator John Cornyn (R-TX) spoke at the Hudson Institute. His topic was Defending Defense: America's National Security Strategy and our Defense Budget. In his introduction, Kenneth Weinstein warned that the defense budget could be cut by $500 billion if the Super Committee does not reach an agreement by November 23.
Senator Cornyn began by outlining the security challenges around the world. Barack Obama's claim to be "leading from behind," he lamented, "has a ring of truth to it." He added that despite his rhetorical gifts, the president "is not interested in articulating our nation's role in the world."
Cornyn's expressed worry that if the Super Committee fails to reach a deal, then hundreds of billions of dollars in defense spending would be sequestered -- cut, basically -- from the FY13 budget. Even if that happens, he vowed to do his utmost to prevent those cuts from actually taking place.
American should define its defense requirements, he said, then fund those requirements. While acknowledging the need to tighten financial controls at the Pentagon and reduce waste, Senator Cornyn empasized that "we must bring federal spending down to a level we can afford."
Referring to the Super Committee, Cornyn said those twelve members of Congress have more power than any other group of Americans since the Constitutional Convention. How is it that our 100 Senators and 435 Representatives have surrendered so much power to a committee of just twelve people?
I was the first person to ask him a question: "Who, which Member of Congress, first proposed setting up the Super Committee?" Cornyn answered: "I believe it was Harry Reid." Here, he confirmed my report from September.
Republicans agreed to a Democrat proposal, and now they're surprised at how badly it turned out! Why are they surprised? In communist parlance, BTW, such a mini-legislature would be known as a presidium. What could possibly go wrong?
www.hudson.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=hudson_upcoming_events&id=896
Michael Zak is a popular speaker to Republican organizations around the country. Back to Basics for the Republican Party is his acclaimed history of the GOP, cited by Clarence Thomas in a Supreme Court decision. He is also the author of the 2005 Republican Freedom Calendar. His Grand Old Partisan website celebrates more than fifteen decades of Republican heroes and heroics. See www.grandoldpartisan.com for more information.

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