GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney courted an audience of veterans Thursday by boasting his plans to expand U.S. military forces and voicing harsh criticisms of a looming sequester set to cut more than $500 billion from the Pentagon.
“[The sequester] is a strange proposal in the first place and it’s even stranger that it’s being put in place,” Romney said at a Springfield, Va. campaign event. “How in the world as commander-in-chief you can stand by as we shrink our military commitment financially is something I don’t understand and I will reverse it.”
Instead, Romney pointed to his own plan to grow rather than shrink the size of America’s military which includes beefing up the number of U.S. Navy vessels and revamping the U.S. Air Force. Moreover, Romney said he wants to add about 100,000 active duty military personnel, a sharp contrast from President Obama’s plan reduce the size of the military.
“I want a military so strong, no one wants to test it.,” he said.
Romney’s campaign stop in Virginia is an integral part in making up ground after several polls out this week showed Obama had widened his lead in several swing states, raking in an average 48 percent support form likely voters compared to Romney’s 46 percent, according to Gallup.
