Congress must significantly increase U.S. defense spending to confront mounting global threats, Rep. Rich McCormick told Newsmax on Wednesday, arguing that lawmakers should offset at least part of the cost by eliminating waste, fraud, and abuse in the nation's healthcare system.

The Georgia Republican, a member of the House Armed Services Committee, said on Newsmax's "Wake Up America" that he supports the Trump administration's push for additional Pentagon funding as House Republicans work to advance a new reconciliation package that includes defense priorities.

"It's going to be hard to get everything that he's asking for," McCormick said, referring to the administration's additional defense request of $350 billion. "Certainly, we need $67 billion just to resupply ourselves and our troops. But getting the full amount might be difficult."

McCormick said the U.S. has allowed defense spending to fall behind despite escalating security challenges around the world.

"We're asking the NATO allies to get up to 5% of their GDP," he said. "We're below 3.5%. We're still at historic lows when it comes to investment in GDP percentage since World War II, basically. And we need to get on it because we have a lot of things going on in the world that are very dangerous to Americans."

"Our first and most important issue is to defend American lives and our prosperity," he added.

The comments come as House Republican leaders prepare to unveil the framework for a third reconciliation package while balancing competing demands from defense hawks seeking higher military spending and fiscal conservatives pressing for deficit reduction.

Asked how Congress could pay for additional defense spending without substantially increasing the national debt, McCormick acknowledged the challenge of balancing both priorities.

"That's always the tough one, right?" he said. "The balance. Not only what do you do to pay for it, but how do you pass it? That's always the push and pull you have between people who are hawks like myself, as well as fiscal hawks."

McCormick, who has frequently called for reducing federal spending, said one of the largest opportunities for savings lies in reforming the healthcare system.

"I'm a person who came here to get rid of debt and fraud," he said. "There's so much stuff we can fix in just healthcare alone."

"We spend $2.5 trillion on healthcare per year. A lot of it is waste, fraud, and abuse. That could be a great issue we can tackle," the congressman said.

He argued, however, that efforts to reduce improper spending often become politically contentious.

"Unfortunately, every time we do that, the Democrats demonize it because they want to find an issue to run against," McCormick said. "That's the hard part, is how do we get it passed the Senate and how do we get to the other end of this without shutting down the government."

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