Player of the week: Rep. Buck McKeon (R-Calif.)

House Armed Services Committee Chairman Buck McKeon (R-Calif.) is on a mission to convince the supercommittee not to cut defense spending beyond what was agreed to in the debt-ceiling deal.

The 10-term lawmaker is using every possible communication tool to make his case, including hearings, speeches, press releases, blogs and videos.

{mosads}Last week, McKeon released a four-minute video that he said “highlights the human face and strategic costs of defense decisions motivated by math, not strategy.”

McKeon cites 9/11, al Qaeda and China as reasons to reject cuts to the Pentagon’s budget. 

During a speech at the American Enterprise Institute on Monday, McKeon said he would even support tax increases over making further spending reductions to defense. 

That is a striking statement from a conservative Republican who said he has never supported a tax hike. He is clearly looking to change the political dynamic on Capitol Hill, especially on his side of the aisle. 

During the administration of George W. Bush, nearly every congressional Republican opposed defense cuts. Now some Tea Party lawmakers point out that the military budget has ballooned over the last decade.

In striking the debt agreement over the summer that cut $350 billion from the Department of Defense, Republicans had to throw tax increases or additional defense cuts in the so-called trigger mechanism. The GOP chose the latter. If the supercommittee deadlocks this fall, another $600 billion in national-security budgets would be slashed.

McKeon does have a key ally in Senate minority whip and supercommittee member Jon Kyl. The Arizona Republican last week threatened to quit the powerful panel if defense is cut any further.

But McKeon is the one to watch on this issue, because he has a growing number of House Republicans behind him. And he will be banging the drum throughout the next couple of months.