Last summer, President Obama and Congress agreed to a deal to raise the debt ceiling and impose spending cuts. The plan called for a “super committee” to find $1.2 trillion in cuts over the next decade. To provide incentive for the committee to achieve consensus, both parties’ leaders agreed that failure of the committee would trigger big cuts in areas they regularly defended – entitlements for Democrats and defense for Republicans. The committee failed to come to an agreement so those default cuts are now scheduled to take effect at the start of 2013. Republicans are now trying to short circuit the automatic defense cuts, which would amount to some $500 billion in the next decade. However, President Obama is vowing to veto any changes to the plan and is ordering the Pentagon to proceed as though that money will not be at its disposal. Alabama Rep. Mo Brooks is a member of the House Armed Services Committee. He says spending should be cut in all areas of the economy, but he contends 50 percent of the burden should not be placed upon a sector that makes up less than 20 percent of the budget. Brooks says it’s clear that defense is at the bottom of Obama’s priority list. The congressman also explains what the cuts would mean to our troops strength, civilian jobs and our military arsenal. Brooks discusses his strong opposition to the debt ceiling deal that led to all of this and explains why there’s little that can be done to ward off the huge defense cuts unless major changes come at the ballot box in November.