As promised, a group of senior Republican senators influential on defense policy unveiled a bill Thursday to divert a portion of the $1.2 trillion in mandatory cuts set to take effect in January 2013.

"I believe the cuts are a threat to national security," said lead bill sponsor John McCain of Arizona, top Republican on the Armed Services Committee.

The "Down Payment to Protect National Security Act," whose ultimate goal is to unwind the full reduction, achieves $127 billion in savings over 10 years, to cover $110 billion in scheduled cuts to defense and certain domestic programs in 2013 alone, by continuing a freeze on federal government worker pay as well as by slicing the workforce by 5 percent through attrition.

The $1.2 trillion in across-the-board cuts, falling equally on defense and domestic budgets, came about as part of a bipartisan compromise to raise the nation's debt ceiling.  The failure of the deficit reduction super committee triggered the cuts, called a "sequestration." 

"You don't eat a steak in one bite. You try to do it in bite size pieces," said the Senate's No. 2 Republican, Jon Kyl of Arizona, who worked with McCain and four other GOP senators on the plan, which would buy time for lawmakers to find the remaining offsets, an Olympic-caliber task which members have, to date, failed.

The measure also contains a national emergency and national security waiver. (read more)