Republican senators plan to unveil in the near future their strategy for thwarting so-called sequestration cuts to Pentagon spending triggered by the collapse of budget talks last year.
“Within days we expect to have a plan,” Senate Armed Services Committee Ranking Member John McCain (R-Ariz.) told reporters yesterday. That plan, which would be followed later by actual legislation, likely will call for stopping just the first year of so-called sequestration cuts to defense and non-defense spending, and replacing them with reductions to other parts of the federal budget, he said.
“I think it’s one year we’re looking at as practical,” he said at the Capitol.
McCain joined with Senate Minority Whip Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.) and SASC members Sens. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), Kelly Ayotte (R-N.H.), and Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) last month to announce they were working on a plan to stop the so-called sequestration cuts now due to occur under the Budget Control Act of 2011 (Defense Daily, Dec. 15, 2011).
The law says if a special congressional committee failed to craft a plan to cut $1.2 trillion in federal spending over 10 years–as it did–a sequestration mechanism would trigger $1.2 trillion in cuts starting in January 2013, with half coming from the Pentagon. Those defense cuts, of up to $600 billion, would be on top of $450 billion from the Pentagon’s 10-year spending plans already approved by the law.
The GOP senators talked last month about replacing the $1.2 billion in longterm sequestration cuts to defense and non-defense items with savings already identified by varied deficit-cutting groups.
Ayotte talked to reporters yesterday about the concept, which McCain cited, of starting the anti-sequestration push by trying to stop just the first year of cuts, which would amount to roughly $55 billion for the Pentagon.
“It may be that we do this in a staged process, because the most-important thing is that we don’t put our Department of Defense in a place where we’re going to devastate our national security,” she said. “Obviously we need to address the full $1.2 trillion over the 10 years. But if we can…relieve some pressure in the first year and we’re able to gain more traction and more bipartisan support for doing that, we‘ll have to look at it and see whether it’s better to do it in a staged process.”
She said Democratic support is vital for such a measure to succeed.
“If we’re able to get more bipartisan support for just handling the first year, then the most-important thing is that we accomplish this,” she said. “So we’re still talking and trying to build support for that.”
McCain said no Democrats are on board for the emerging GOP plan now, but said they have not been presented anything yet.
“I’m sure there’ll be some Democrats,” he said. “It depends a lot on public opinion. It depends on how we can convince people that we have to reverse these defense cuts for the sake of national security.”
SASC member Sen. Joseph Lieberman (I/D-Conn.) had planned to join the GOP senators in announcing their anti-sequestration effort last month, but then opted to not appear at a Capitol press conference on it.
Lieberman told reporters yesterday he did not attend the Dec. 14 press conference because “they had gotten more specific than I was prepared to get.”
“I thought (the press conference was held to present) a general statement to commit to work together to avoid the sequestration,” he said. “Instead it was a specific proposal which I hadn’t seen before. So I said, ‘I can’t go today, but I’m still very interested.’”
Lieberman said he talked to McCain at length about anti-sequestration options during the recent congressional recess.
“Defense is a priority for me, so I hope to be involved in those discussions,” the Connecticut senator said.
SASC Chairman Carl Levin (D-Mich.) told reporters yesterday he thinks there can be bipartisan support for a plan to prevent the $1.2 billion in defense and non-defense sequestration cuts. The SASC chairman, though, wants Congress to craft a full-blown $1.2 trillion deficit reduction plan, and not just an effort to stop the politically-unpopular sequestration cuts.
Levin and McCain are split on whether any anti-sequestration plan should call for more revenue. McCain said he won’t consider revenue-raisers, such as tax-code changes, while Levin called for “ideologues in the Republican party” to “get off the no-revenue determination.”
Meanwhile, in the House, HASC Chairman Howard “Buck” McKeon (R-Calif.) and committee members touted yesterday their anti-sequestration plan, the Down Payment to Protect National Security Act. The bill would reduce the federal workforce to fund a one-year reprieve from the sequestration cuts.
President Barack Obama said on Nov. 21, 2011, the day the so-called “super committee” of lawmakers announced defeat, that he would “veto any effort to get rid of those automatic spending cuts to domestic and defense spending.” He said he wanted congressional Democrats and Republicans to agree on a large-scale deficit-cutting plan.