While the cost of the nation’s pandemic response is putting pressure on the defense budget, its unlikely Congress will make a sweeping, indiscriminate cut, according to Senate Armed Services Committee chairman.
Republican Rep. Ken Calvert is willing to meet Democratic lawmakers partway in their reported plans to trim the defense budget: cut back on civilian employees, not equipment and modernization.
New START, which limits each country to no more than 1,550 deployed nuclear warheads and 700 deployed missiles and bombers, expires Feb. 5 unless the U.S. and Russia agree to extend it.