HispanicBusiness

Three U.S. senators, including former 2008 presidential candidate John McCain, will visit Fayetteville on Monday to speak about the "potentially devastating impact" of looming defense budget cuts.

McCain of Arizona, Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, and Sen. Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire, will hold a town hall meeting at the Tony Rand Student Center on the campus of Fayetteville Technical Community College from 1:30 to 2:30 p.m.

The Republican senators are traveling through four battleground states -- they'll also stop in Florida, Virginia and New Hampshire -- talking about the defense budget. Military spending is set to be cut by $500 billion in the next decade as the country wraps up wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

But unless Congress reaches a new budget deal before January, the current deal triggers a process called sequestration that automatically cuts another $500 billion each from domestic and defense spending.

"The senators will discuss how inaction on sequestration would seriously risk national security, eliminate over two million jobs in our struggling economy, potentially devastate the defense industry in North Carolina (the second largest sector of the state economy) and break faith with the men and women of our Armed Forces and their families," according to an email from the Fayetteville-Cumberland Chamber of Commerce.

The chamber, FTCC and the North Carolina Military Business Center are sponsoring the meeting.

The meeting is free and open to the public, but online registration is recommended at ncmbc.us.