GOP presidential hopeful Mitt Romney has proposed cutting funds from the Medicaid program to make up cuts to the defense budget as the result of the Congressional supercommittee's inability to reach a deal, reports The Boston Globe.
As a result of the supercommittee's failure to negotiate a deficit reduction plan, about $1.2 trillion in automatic budget cuts are to be enacted over the next decade, starting in 2013. About half are supposed to come from reductions in military spending.
Romney suggested returning the Medicaid program to the states and pegging increases to the Consumer Price Index, which is a fraction of annual medical inflation. "You more than compensate for the $600 billion that you restored to the defense budget,'' Romney told an audience in Nashua, N.H.
"The president has shown only a willingness to cut military spending,'' Romney continued. "His answer to a government that's too big is to keep cutting the military. And this at a time when the world has become more dangerous. It is unacceptable.''
The Obama administration has actually increased military spending slightly since 2009, according to the Globe.
For more:
- check out the Boston Globe article
- read the American Medical News article about Romney's Medicare proposals