The Army has “huge” worries about how the defense contractors on which it relies will fare if sequestration budget cuts persist, its top civilian said.
Army Secretary John McHugh told the House Appropriations Defense subcommittee (HAC-D), though, that the service doesn’t have an up-to-date assessment of the cuts’ impact on the industrial base. Sequestration is the $500 billion decade-long defense cut that started March 1.
“This is a huge worry for us,” McHugh, a former congressman, told the powerful subcommittee yesterday.
Back in February, he said officials estimated the industrial base would lose $7.1 billion, and nearly 18,000 jobs would be affected, if sequestration kicked in and the Pentagon continued operating under a now-expired temporary budget called a continuing resolution (CR). Since then, though, Congress replaced the CR with a full defense appropriations bill that allows the Army and other services to reprogram funding they already have.
“We’d like to think that’s been somewhat diminished through our management and through Congress’ help with reprogramming,” McHugh said about how the industrial base would fare under sequestration, in terms of dollars and jobs.
“But clearly this continues to be a huge issue, and will continue to cascade into (fiscal year) ‘14 and beyond,” unless Congress and the White House agree on a plan to stop or diminish the impact of sequestration, he said.
The Army is keeping a close eye on its weapons programs to “minimize the impact to the industrial base” and also keep them “working and viable,” he said.
“Every time we have to move a program to the right, that stretches out the time period, that increases cost, that’s less efficient,” McHugh said. “And all kinds of problems come from there.”