NEW YORK–With most of the members of a new deficit-cutting congressional committee named yesterday, some defense watchers predicted it will not spare the Pentagon budget substantial cuts.
Six Republicans–three from the House and Senate each–were named yesterday to the 12-member Joint Select Committee charged with finding up to $1.5 trillion in additional federal budget cuts over the next decade, the House and Senate GOP leaders announced. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) announced on Tuesday the three Democrats from his chamber, leaving just three House Democrats to be appointed by House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.).
House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) yesterday named conservative House Republican Conference Chairman Jeb Hensarling (R-Texas) as co-chair of the new Joint Select Committee, and Reid said Tuesday the other co-chair will be progressive Senate Democratic Conference Secretary Patty Murray (D-Wash.)
“There are no clear what I’ll call defense hawks as far as this committee is concerned,” Mackenzie Eaglen from the right-leaning Washington think tank The Heritage Foundation said yesterday at a conference here.
In addition to Murray and Hensarling, the members named thus far are Sens. Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.), Pat Toomey (R-Pa.), Rob Portman (R-Ohio), Max Baucus (D-Mont.), and John Kerry (D-Mass.), along with Reps. Dave Camp (R-Mich.) and Fred Upton (R-Mich.).
None of the House members serve on the House armed services committee or defense appropriations subcommittee. Portman, a former director of Obama’s Office of Management and Budget (OMB), sits on the Senate Armed Services Committee. Murray, notably, is a member of the Senate Appropriations Defense subcommittee and outspoken defender of Boeing [BA] weapons programs.
Despite Murray’s reputation for protecting this major employer in her homestate, some observers are not viewing her as a particularly strong voice for defense-industry interests on the panel charged with finding up to $1.5 trillion in 10-year savings by Nov. 23.
“This is moving so fast,” Eaglen told Defense Daily yesterday at the Jeffries 2011 Global Industrial and Aerospace & Defense Conference. “There isn’t a lot of time for thoughtful analysis. I think they’re going to fall back on a lot of preexisting plans and proposals….So even if Sen. Murray’s inclinations are to be supportive of defense, it’s not enough to stave off more cuts.”
Various deficit-cutting proposals, floated before the White House and Congress approved the new Budget Control Act last week, called for cutting the defense budget from roughly $800 billion to $1 trillion in the coming years.
The new law Obama signed Aug. 2 calls for initially cutting defense-related spending by $350 billion over 10 years. The Joint Select Committee will meet this fall to find up to $1.5 trillion in overall federal spending cuts over the next decade, and will consider cuts to entitlement programs as well as new taxes. If the panel and Congress can’t agree to the overall cuts by the end of the year, a sequestration process would cut at least $1.2 trillion in government spending over the next decade, with half of the money coming from the Pentagon. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta on Aug . 4 called the sequestration process a “doomsday mechanism.”
Eaglen said the Joint Select Committee’s charter will force Republicans “to choose between no tax increases, no revenue whatsoever, and really steep defense cuts.”
“They don’t want to make that choice…but they’re still going to choose no tax increases over defense cuts, every time,” she added. “That’s just where the Republican party is today. It’s not the Republican party of (former president Ronald) Reagan.”
Kyl, the Senate Minority Whip, has traditionally supported defense programs and has been outspoken on missile defense and nuclear matters. Yet Eaglen was skeptical regarding how much of an advocate he will be for defense programs, predicting he will represent Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell’s (R-Ky.) no-tax-hike position, “even if it means more defense cuts.”
Also, Kyl is not seeking reelection, and Eaglen said “it’s easier to throw (defense spending) under the bus when you have one foot out of the door.”
Eaglen predicted the Joint Select Committee, if it can agree to a budget-cutting plan, will propose “hundreds of billions” of dollars in defense cuts. An “easy choice,” she said, would for it to propose $350 billion, for a grand total of $700 billion in cuts over the next decade.
Analyst Byron Callan, director of Capital Alpha Partners LLC in Washington, noted yesterday investors may have wanted “a stronger voice for defense on the Joint Select Committee who might argue more forcefully for agreement that could avoid triggering the ‘doomsday machine’ of automatic sequester for (Department of Defense) defense spending.”