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With the support of Congressman Bill Posey (R-Rockledge) the U.S. House of Representatives passed legislation to address the massive cuts to the nation’s Defense budget which are set to go into effect in January. The National Security and Job Protection Act (H.R. 6365) is the second time the House has approved legislation to replace the massive defense cuts. The first bill was passed by the House on May 10, 2012, but the Senate has done nothing.

“Time is running out for the Senate and the President to join us in stopping the massive defense cuts followed by layoffs of tens of thousands of American citizens,” said Congressman Posey. “The $500 billion in across the board defense cuts – guided by no strategy, no priorities, no judgment and no plan – is an arbitrary undermining of our Armed Forces and Defense workers and that’s why I voted against this sequestration process from the outset in August of 2011.

Last May, the House passed H.R. 5652, the Sequester Replacement Reconciliation Act, which replaces the $500 billion in across the board defense cuts with reforms and savings in other programs. The new legislation, H.R. 6365, requires the President to submit a plan to resolve sequestration, something the he has yet to do. Second, it makes clear that either the House-passed reconciliation bill from May or another bill that achieves a similar level of savings is sufficient to replace the defense sequestration cuts.

“It’s time for the Senate and the President to get engaged on this and do their jobs to develop a coherent plan to avert this calamity,” said Posey. “Clearly there’s waste that can and should be cut from the Defense budget, but that needs to be done surgically, not with a meat axe that could jeopardize the safety and readiness of our troops.”

Lawmakers are also waiting on an already overdue report from the President detailing how he was planning to implement the sequester as per a bipartisan bill that passed the House and Senate and was signed into law by the President. The report was due last week.