Video: Delegation Worried About Defense Cuts

[bitsontherun CZ3MFGSM]LOWNDES COUNTY, Miss. (WCBI) — With negotiators trying to avert a “fiscal cliff” with the federal budget, the state’s congressional delegation continues to worry about the impact of spending cuts on the state’s defense industry.

Republican Congressman Steven Palazzo of Gulfport is touring Pentagon contractors around the state this week to focus attention on what cuts could mean to jobs and the state’s economy. The 4th District congressman was at American Eurocopter in Lowndes County Monday.

Eurocopter is in the midst of a $3 billion to build unarmed Lakota light utility helicopters for the military.

“What we are worried about is these additional cuts when the defense department makes up 20 percent of the budget; they have already absorbed 50 percent of the cuts so these are historic cuts to our national security at a time when we are seeing an unprecedented violence to Americans, American interest and our allies around the world,” Palazzo said during a tour of the company’s Lowndes County plant.

Eurocopter also plans to make an armed version of the chopper for the Army.