Top Republican rejects Panetta’s defense budget criticism

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A top Republican lawmaker on defense issues on Friday rejected Pentagon chief Leon Panetta’s criticism of budget maneuvering in Congress, underscoring the difficulty of finding a compromise on security spending at a time of sharp political polarization. Representative Buck McKeon, chairman of the House of Representatives Armed Services Committee, told Panetta in a letter that he was “clearly operating under some misconceptions” about a defense policy bill passed this week that authorized $554 billion in defense spending for the 2013 fiscal year. …