Pentagon leaders told Democrats yesterday that actions the military is taking now to soften the blow of potential budget cuts scheduled for next month could be reversed if politicians agree to stop the spending reductions.
As the March 1 start date of the politically unpopular defense “sequestration” cuts of $500 billion nears, Democrats on the Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC) sought assurances from Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Army Gen. Martin Dempsey that the military would not be greatly harmed by partisan gridlock over budget negotiations in Washington.
The Pentagon is not only preparing for the potential start of sequestration–by collecting detailed assessments from the military services in recent days–but also taking steps now to gird for the cuts. It has implemented hiring freezes, cut back on facilities maintenance, and laid off temporary and term employees. In a move that has jarred some lawmakers, Panetta also agreed to delay the deployment of the USS Harry S. Truman (CVN-75) aircraft carrier, along with its air wing and a cruiser to the Middle East, the Pentagon acknowledged Wednesday following an Associated Press article. Pentagon officials are concerned about the sequestration cuts compromising the military’s readiness.
“So what we’re trying to do is to slow down that rate of spending that’s going on so it will not require as deep a dive as we’re going to have to have in readiness,” Panetta told the SASC during a hearing yesterday.
“Most of this is reversible,” he said. “Most of this, if we don’t (do) sequester we’re going to be able to reverse and be able to get back on track.”
Dempsey similarly said “most of the things that we’re doing are reversible,” yet noted that to make such reversals “will take some time.”
He said the Pentagon took the decision on the aircraft-carrier postponement “very seriously,” weighing the “human dimension” to the delay, because of the sailors’ whose lives are so greatly impacted.
The Pentagon faces another problem in addition to sequestration, because it is operating in fiscal 2013 under a bare-bones “continuing resolution” that funds it near FY ’12 levels, instead of an actual defense appropriations act. The Pentagon, though, has been operating at a spend rate consistent with higher operating funding it had requested for FY ’13.
Panetta said if sequestration starts March 1 and then Congress decides to extend that continuing resolution for all of FY ’13–after its March 27 expiration date–the Pentagon will have to take “almost $46 billion” out of its budget for the fiscal year that ends Sept. 30.
Panetta, a veteran Democrat preparing to retire, said the only way he believes sequestration can be stopped effectively is for Democrats and Republicans in Congress and the White House to agree on an alternate package of spending cuts and revenue raisers.
He said he does not agree with the prediction that sequestration could start on March 1 and last for only a few weeks, before lawmakers scared by the unpopular cuts are forced to come together and agree on an alternate plan.
Yesterday’s SASC hearing was not on the Pentagon budget but on the Sept. 11, 2012 attacks in Benghazi, Libya. Yet Democrats on the panel–who want to push Republicans to agree to added tax revenues in a sequestration-avoidance plan–used the opportunity to elicit Panetta and Dempsey’s dire predictions on the impact the across-the-board cuts would have on military readiness.
President Barack Obama and many Democrats and Republicans in Congress oppose sequestration, but can’t agree on a plan to prevent them.
Many Republicans are opposed to allowing new government revenue through tax changes to be allowed in an alternate plan, considering they relented in the New Year’s Day fiscal deal and allowed tax rates to raise on the wealthiest Americans. GOP leaders including House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) have declared sequestration will kick in, as they attempt to use it as a bargaining chip in wider budget deliberations.
Obama called on Tuesday for Congress to craft a short-term plan to prevent the start of sequestration that includes alternate spending cuts and new revenues through tax code changes, such as ending some corporate loopholes (Defense Daily, Feb. 6). Several Republicans quickly pushed back on the new revenues.