The defense secretary called yesterday for lawmakers to let go of pet military projects as the Pentagon plans a strategy for slashing $450 billion in spending that emphasizes modernization and procurement cuts.
Secretary Leon Panetta said at the Woodrow Wilson Center that the Pentagon’s forthcoming budget-cutting proposals will be “carefully targeted” to “avoid a hollow force, to ensure that we maintain a robust industrial base, and to protect the new military capabilities we need in order to sustain military strength.”
Yet the former congressman and White House budget director said accomplishing the strategy-based savings “will require that we navigate through some very perilous political waters.”
“As we implement the changes we need to preserve the force capable of protecting our country with fewer resources, we above all will need the full cooperation of Congress, my former colleagues, to protect defense,” Panetta maintained during his address at the Washington think tank.
“They must be a responsible partner in supporting a strong defense strategy that may not always include their favorite base or their favorite weapon system,” he said.
The Pentagon is expected to unveil the full results of its wide-reaching strategic review, intended to identify cost savings required by the Budget Control Act of 2011, when it submits its next budget proposal to Congress next February.
Panetta said the law, which President Barack Obama signed in August, cuts more than $450 billion in planned Pentagon spending over the next decade. A congressional Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction created by the act is weighing up to $1.5 trillion in additional government-wide savings, and if it and Congress can’t agree on a plan by the end of the year defense spending will be cut by roughly $500 billion more through a sequestration process.
The defense secretary reiterated his ongoing plea for lawmakers to come to a deficit-cutting agreement. The sequester would roughly double the defense cuts and, he asserted, “do catastrophic damage to our military and its ability to protect the country.”
The Pentagon is trying to strategically plan for implementing the initial $450 billion in cuts through modernization and procurement reforms, efficiencies, and changes to personnel costs and force structure, Panetta said.
The largest of these four areas the Pentagon is examining for reductions is “modernization and operating costs,” he said. Every program, contract, and facility will be scrutinized for savings, he added.
“We will need to consider accepting reduced levels of modernization in some areas, carefully informed by strategy and rigorous analysis,” he said. “In addition, we will look to procurement reforms that improve competition, try to deliver on cost control, and try to speed up delivery of these systems.”
The Pentagon, meanwhile, is looking at “ruthlessly pursuing efficiencies and streamlining efforts designed to eliminate overhead infrastructure, waste and duplication,” as well as preparing it for its first-ever financial audit, he said.
The Pentagon is “considering” an “aggressive” target of $60 billion in new efficiency-related savings over the next five years, he said.
Still, Panetta cautioned the efficiency-related changes “can only go so far” in garnering savings, in part because the Pentagon already is implementing more than $150 million in such reforms spurred last year by former Defense Secretary Robert Gates.