So NOW.. the GOP negotiators want to water down the defense cut trigger.

While a tentative deal has been reached to raise the debt ceiling, a number of Republican lawmakers are threatening to blow up the compromise over a provision that would trigger modest cuts to the military if the bipartisan deficit reduction committee the bill creates cannot reach an agreement. Republicans are threatening a “sizable GOP defection in the House” while hawkish Sens. Lindsay Graham (R-SC) and Joe Lieberman (I-CT) have expressed concern about the potential defense cuts.

The trigger is intended as a threat to encourage Congress to enact the commission’s requests, and thus contains elements that are distasteful to both parties. But the military cuts should be far more palatable to conservatives than the provision meant to cajole Democrats — Medicare cuts — are to progressives. While cutting social safety net programs like Medicare is anathema to fundamental progressive principles, reining in defense spending is appealing to many fiscal conservatives. In fact, dozens of leading Republican lawmakers, conservative leaders, and Tea Party activists have publicly called for defense cuts in recent months: