(Radio Iowa) – Republican Senator Joni Ernst says now is not the time to cut the Pentagon’s budget. “We know that there are areas in our national defense where we are lagging behind,” Ernst says. “If you take a look at what we call our nuclear triad, we know that we need to modernize. We are very, very far behind in some of those efforts and areas.”

House Republicans say they will insist on cuts in federal spending in any deal to raise the government’s ability to borrow more money to pay its bills. Ernst says cuts to military spending would not be helpful. “To scale back tremendously on national defense, I think it’s the wrong thing to do when we live in an ever increasingly dangerous, dangerous world,” Ernst says.

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy says every single level of government should be looking at ways to spend less money. He says in an 800 BILLION dollar defense budget, there are areas that can be cut, like the money the Air Force is spending to research the use of biofuels in jets.