GOP unveils bill to lessen defense cuts

Plan would cut federal workforce by 5 percent and extend a pay freeze.

WASHINGTON — Intent on sparing the Pentagon from deep spending cuts, top Senate Republicans on Thursday endorsed legislation that targets federal workers, reducing their ranks and freezing their salaries, to avoid the pain of automatic cuts for one year.

The White House and Democrats swiftly rejected the piecemeal approach, arguing that President Barack Obama and congressional Republicans backed the long-term, deficit-cutting plan last August and can’t suddenly abandon it when faced with the dire consequences.

Sen. Jon Kyl, the No. 2 Senate Republican, and John Mccain, the top GOP lawmaker on the Armed Services Committee, unveiled legislation to offset the automatic, across-the-board cuts scheduled to kick in next January.

Their bill would extend a pay freeze for federal employees and reduce the workforce by 5 percent by limiting hiring to two employees for every three who leave.

The Arizona senators, joined by Armed Services members Sen. Kelly Ayotte, R-N.H., John Cornyn, R-texas, and Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said the proposal would replace about $110 billion in cuts. Sen. Marco Rubio, R-fla., also embraced the plan.

“The prudent path forward would be to replace all of the across-the-board cuts with an equal amount of responsible savings,” the senators said. “As Congress considers funding for the next fiscal year, we should at least be able to agree to one year in targeted spending reductions, instead of the draconian, acrossthe-board cuts resulting from sequestration.”

The Pentagon is dealing with a reduction in projected defense spending of $487 billion over 10 years based on the deficit-cutting plan that Obama and Republicans backed last summer.

Failure of the so-called supercommittee to find at least $1.2 trillion in cuts in November will trigger another round of cuts in January 2013 in defense and domestic spending, with the Pentagon facing an additional $492 billion reduction over a decade.

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and the military chiefs have said such added cuts would be catastrophic. Republicans are trying to at least protect the military, but face stiff opposition from Democrats. Obama has vowed to veto any attempt to undo the legislation.