House Armed Services Chairman Buck McKeon Is Retiring

Sources give the Associated Press a big heads-up about one of the most powerful members of the House of Representatives:

Rep. Howard “Buck” McKeon, who as chairman of the House Armed Services Committee has struggled to protect defense spending against deficit hawks, has decided to retire after 21 years in Congress, Republicans officials said Wednesday.

The 75-year-old McKeon was expected to announce his plans on Thursday at a Capitol Hill news conference. His office declined to confirm the news, with spokeswoman Alissa McCurley simply saying, “The congressman will make an announcement when he is ready to make the announcement.”

The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to publicly discuss McKeon’s plans ahead of the formal announcement.

McKeon’s Armed Services counterpart in the Senate, Democrat Carl Levin of Michigan, also plans to retire after this year. In Virginia, Rep. Jim Moran, a 12-term Democrat, announced that he was retiring from the House.

The soft-spoken McKeon campaigned for Republican candidates in 2010 and, thanks to the GOP wave that year, took over the chairmanship of the committee that oversees military policy, war operations and authorizes budgets for the Pentagon. During his time in charge, McKeon has fought congressional efforts to slash spending as defense hawks increasingly were outnumbered, even in the Republican Party.

The end of two wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and increasing deficits served as the impetus for budget reductions.

By: dave-dr-gonzo

David Hirsch, a.k.a. Dave "Doctor" Gonzo*, is a renegade record producer, video producer, writer, reformed corporate shill, and still-registered lobbyist for non-one-percenter performing artists and musicians. He lives in a heavily fortified compound in one of Manhattan's less trendy neighborhoods.

* Hirsch is the third person to use the pseudonym, a not-so-veiled tribute to journalist and author Hunter S. Thompson, with the permission of his predecessors Gene Gaudette of American Politics Journal (currently webmaster and chief bottlewasher at Liberaland) and Stephen Meese at Smashmouth Politics.