U.S. Rep. Vicky Hartzler voted against last summer's budget deal because it "didn't go far enough. I also didn't like how they were balancing this budget on the backs of the military - immediately cutting $465 billion."
But Hartzler, R-Harrisonville, told members of Jefferson City's Downtown Rotary Club on Monday afternoon, that she's even less happy, after the congressional "debt supercommittee" failed this month to agree on any plan to cut at least $1.2 trillion in spending - because the summer budget deal included a "sequestration" process to reduce military and other spending equally, if the supercommittee didn't get to a final agreement.
"There (is to) be an additional $500 billion of cuts," Hartzler said. "That's almost a trillion dollars worth of cuts to our national defense. ...
"We've had multiple hearings in the (House) Armed Services Committee, and general after general has come forward and said that these amounts of cuts would hollow-out our forces and it would very much jeopardize our national security."