For the second day in a row, the defense secretary and chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff brought their 2015 budget request to Capitol Hill, only to have lawmakers indicate their higher-than-sequester budget levels were unlikely to be approved and their spending priorities were likely to be changed to get rid of several “politically unpopular” ideas–though this time, the chairman outlined a list of unsavory alternative ways to cut billions of dollars if Congress rejects the Pentagon’s recommendations.
On Thursday in front of the House Armed Services Committee, Chuck Hagel and Army Gen. Martin Dempsey testified that their budget request–adhering to the $496 billion spending cap in fiscal year 2015, exceeding the caps by $115 billion from FY ’16-19, and involving an additional $26 billion in a one-time, government-wide supplemental spending package in FY ’15–was necessary to keep the military ready and equipped.
Right from the start, it was clear the lawmakers were not buying into the spending plan.
HASC Chairman Buck McKeon (R-Calif.) said “something magical” would have to happen for the Pentagon to actually see the $26 billion in supplemental spending, part of the White House’s $56 billion Opportunity, Growth and Security (OGS) Initiative that includes defense and domestic spending to be paid for through cuts to entitlements and closing tax loopholes.
“I’m not paying much attention to the $115 [billion], and I’m not paying much attention to that [$56 billion] because that’s in the realm of, it would be wonderful but it’s not going to happen,” McKeon told Hagel and Dempsey. “So I think we really have to live within, right now, something I hate, and I’m sure you do, and I think most of the members of the committee do. But [sequestration] is the law and we’re stuck with it now.”
Hagel responded that the $26 billion from the OGS Initiative was needed to buy back some of the readiness lost during two years of across-the-board cuts from sequestration that forced the military to stand down squadrons; defer maintenance for aircraft, ships and ground vehicles; reduce flying hours and training time at home; and scale back or cancel training exercises with international partners.
HASC Ranking Member Adam Smith (D-Wash.) noted a few minutes later that he too believed DoD would be stuck with the current sequester spending caps, which forces hard decisions for both military officials and lawmakers.
“You’ve had to make a decision, you’ve had to put together a budget based on that topline law that we agree is not going to change–you haven’t had the luxury of the fantasy we all have to imagine that somehow we can oppose every cut, offer no alternative cuts and complain about the size of the budget,” he said. “So you made the decision on A-10, the decision on force structure, on mothballing 11 cruisers, on a lot of compensation issues including the housing allowance, some minor savings in commissaries–a whole bunch of issues that are politically unpopular.”
Smith acknowledged that lawmakers tend to criticize cuts and try to undo them but rarely offer up other ideas of where to cut. He said he hoped his colleagues would not do that this time around, but noting that some of the items in that list of cuts would not gain Congress’s approval, he asked if DoD officials had considered what else could be cut in its place.
“Accept the topline as it is: you’ve made the cuts that you’ve made,” Smith said. “If you get political pushback, for instance, to the tune of $10 billion–we won’t retire the A-10, we won’t mothball the cruisers, we won’t reduce the housing allowance, whatever…Let’s say we whack out $10 billion in your cuts, what would you have to do, how would you make up that $10 billion?”
“We’ll have to continue to put our security and our ability to protect this country at risk because you’re going to continue to take down the entire infrastructure that supports readiness,” Hagel warned in response.
Dempsey added that, in picking those particular cuts, the idea was to keep the joint force in balance. He described a chart his office had prepared–entitled “What Does $1 Billion Buy for DoD?”, which he described as a menu of options–“so if you were to whack out $10 billion, you could get a sense I think for where we would have to go to find” those savings elsewhere in the budget.
“So we can tell you with some clarity–not some clarity, great clarity–what we would have to do if you don’t accept our recommendations, and then you’ll have to decide” which set of cuts is more tenable.
According to the list, obtained by Defense Daily, $1 billion dollars can buy readiness for:
– 12 F-16 squadrons ready for a year;
– eight KC-135 squadrons for a year;
– one carrier strike group for five months;
– two carrier air wings for a year;
– a thousand-Marine embassy security group for 10 years;
– 15 Marine Corps infantry battalions for a year;
– three Army infantry brigade combat teams for a year;
– 20 Combat Training Center exercises over a two-year period; and
– the Minuteman III fleet of 450 ICBMs for one year.
$1 billion dollars can also buy:
– 10 F-35 Joint Strike Fighters;
– Two Littoral Combat Ships;
– Five P-8A maritime multi-mission aircraft;
– 900 Joint Standoff Weapon (JSOW) and 80 Advanced Medium-Range Air-to-Air Missiles (AMRAAM) weapons;
– Upgrades to 1,000 Marine Corps Light Armored Vehicles and 140 Amphibious Assault Vehicles;
– 50 UH-60 Black Hawk helicopters;
– A Terminal High Altitude Air Defense battery with 48 interceptors; and
– The research, development, test and evaluation for the Army’s Ground Combat Vehicle, which was canceled this year due, in part, to rising costs.