One would have expected Michele Bachmann to reiterate her claims that Obamacare is a threat to national security, but during Tuesday night’s CNN presidential debate, it was Mitt Romney who attempted to connect the health care law to the military, suggesting that government spending to increase access to health care should be spent by the Pentagon:
ROMNEY: Congressman Paul, what they’re doing is cutting a trillion dollars out of the defense budget. They’re cutting a trillion dollars out of the defense budget, which just happens to equal the trillion dollars we’re putting into “Obama-care.”And so what you have is a president that has a priority of spending us into bankruptcy, but he’s not just spending us into bankruptcy, he’s spending the money foolishly. We need to protect America and protect our troops and our military and stop the idea of “Obama-care.” That’s the best way to save money, not the military.
Watch it:
In other words, Romney would re-route the federal spending in the Affordable Care Act out of tax credits that will allow lower and middle class families to afford insurance premiums and pour that money into a defense budget that has grown by more than 50 percent over the past 10 years and could “easily absorb” the reduction in the Budget Control Act’s sequester mechanism.
He is transferring federal funds from a program that would increase access to health care for everyone, start lowering national health care spending and reduce the national deficit, in order to avoid reductions to the Pentagon’s many wasteful, costly weapons programs and private defense contractors that sometimes overcharge and bilk taxpayers. Consequently, Romney would increase national deficits and the unsustainable rates of health care and military spending.