The Pentagon proposed a $525.6 billion budget on Wednesday that optimistically ignores “sequestration” budget cuts while also seeking $8.2 billion in savings by cutting and restructuring weapons programs over five years.
The spending request sent to Congress, for fiscal year 2014, would alter plans for what the Pentagon dubs “lower-priority and poorly performing weapons programs,” including cutting the SM-3 IIB missile interceptor and restructuring the Army’s Ground Combat Vehicle development effort.
The measure backs the military’s shift to the Asia-Pacific and increases funding in areas including cybersecurity and intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance. It supports current plans for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter while seeking an additional Virginia-class submarine and 21 more E/A-18G Growler electronic-attack fighters.
Yet it’s the proposal’s overall level of funding, and approach to sequestration, that already has generated discontent among Republicans on Capitol Hill.
The FY ’14 plan seeks to boost defense spending to $525.6 billion, or 8 percent more than the current $493 billion level for FY ’13. That increase would be achieved by not factoring in $52 billion in “sequestration” cuts in FY ’14. It leaves them out because President Barack Obama offers a plan–with controversial provisions such as tax increases Republicans are rejecting–to end the $1.2 trillion in decade-long defense and nondefense sequestration cuts in his overall federal budget. Under sequestration, which started last month, Pentagon spending is capped at roughly $475 billion in FY ’14, or $52 billion less than the Pentagon requested Wednesday.
The Obama administration wants to end the $500 billion in decade-long Pentagon sequestration cuts and replace them with $150 billion in other defense reductions. Those $150 billion in cuts would be “back-loaded,” failing mainly in the years beyond FY ’18, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel told reporters at the Pentagon Wednesday.
Senate Armed Services Committee Ranking Member James Inhofe (R-Okla.) charged Obama’s budget proposal fails to “propose a plan that can actually pass Congress to replace these unacceptable (sequestration) cuts,” and thus saddles the military “with disproportionate and illogical budget cuts that drastically undermine the readiness and capabilities they need to operate in an increasingly dangerous world.” House Armed Services Committee (HASC) Chairman Howard “Buck” McKeon (R-Calif.) called the alternative defense cut proposed by Obama–which the HASC said is $120 billion– “arbitrary,” saying it was proposed “with no assessment of strategic impact.”
The HASC will grill Hagel and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Army Gen. Martin Dempsey about the FY ’14 Pentagon budget Thursday.
If Congress does not agree to a plan to end sequestration, and then a FY ’14 defense budget is signed into law that exceeds that sequestration cap, excess funding would have to be cut, Pentagon Comptroller Robert Hale acknowledged to reporters Wednesday.
Hagel stood by Obama’s overall federal budget proposal, saying it “offers a comprehensive deficit reduction plan that would permit Congress to eliminate sequestration.” He said while “no agency welcomes further budget cuts”–such as the $150 billion in replacement Pentagon cuts–Obama’s FY ’14 budget plan would give the Pentagon time “to achieve these longer term savings without disproportionate harm to modernization and readiness–the budget categories that will provide the most immediate savings but also encompass most of our military capabilities.”
Some defense analysts and lawmakers have called for the Pentagon to present a FY ’14 budget that factors in the sequestration cuts.
Hagel, still, optimistically pointed out to reporters Wednesday that House and Senate budget resolutions, like Obama’s budget, support funding the Pentagon in FY ’14 at non-sequestration levels.
Dempsey noted to reporters Wednesday that Pentagon officials are examining how the Pentagon would fare under different funding levels, including the full sequestration cuts. He and Deputy Defense Secretary Ashton Carter plan to deliver a Strategic Choices and Management Review, after assessing those different budget scenarios, to Hagel by the end of May.
“I think we’re doing due diligence here,” Dempsey said.
The Pentagon’s FY ’14 spending plan focuses on three broad categories for cuts–acquisitions, personnel compensation, and infrastructure and overhead.
It continues to “shift priorities within modernization portfolios…to achieve $8.2 billion in savings from weapons program terminations and restructuring over the next five years,” Hagel said.
Missile-defense programs are targeted, according to Pentagon officials and budget documents. For example, the budget would terminate the precision-tracking satellite system, shifting some funding to research on missile interceptor capability and yielding $1.9 billion in savings over five years.
The Pentagon also seeks to restructure and cut funding for the SM-3 IIB missile interceptor program–which had been integral to Obama’s longterm plans for missile defense in Europe–dubbing it high-risk and expensive. Funds for the interceptor would be shifted to warhead improvements and additional ground-based interceptors. This change would yield $600 billion in savings over five years, the Pentagon says.
The defense budget proposals further seeks to save $2 billion in development costs by modifying the acquisition strategy for the Army’s Ground Combat Vehicle and choosing a single contractor among industry competitors sooner than planned.
Hale said the budget would “protect and prioritize some key investments,” including upgrades to aircraft carriers and continued support for the multi-service F-35 Joint Strike Fighter and the Air Force’s aerial-refueling tanker. It seeks funding for an additional Virginia-class submarine and 21 previously unplanned E/A-18G Growler electronic-attack jets.
Funding for cyber security–an increased area of concern across the government–would be increased from $3.9 billion to $4.7 billion, he said.
The budget plan also proposes an array of initiatives to change the way the Pentagon does business, which are aimed at saving $34 billion over five years. These proposals include a new round of base closures and a restructuring of the Pentagon civilian workforce. Those new initiatives would be on top of $211 billion in already-planned Pentagon business efficiencies and overhead reductions.
The Pentagon did not unveil its full Overseas Contingency Operations budget proposal for war funding on Wednesday, and hopes to submit it to Congress “within a month,” Hale said.