Pentagon leaders are probably telling a “little fib” when they say they’re not preparing for the possibility of the draconian budget cuts that would come if lawmakers and the White House cannot agree on a long-term deficit reduction spending plan, the chairman of the House Armed Services Committee (HASC) said yesterday.
The Pentagon, including Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, have said they are making no plans to absorb at least $500 billion in spending cuts over the next 10 years that would be triggered under a sequestration measure in the Budget Control Act of 2011. Panetta, however, has acknowledged that the Pentagon may need to start that planning this summer if an agreement is not reached to avoid sequestration.
The chairman of the HASC, Howard “Buck” McKeon (R-Calif.), told reporters that he suspects there has been some level of planning going on despite public statements to the contrary.
“I’d be nice to assume that they always tell us the truth. But it’s hard for me to believe, that the military people I know would just sit on their hands and not plan for this,” McKeon told a session of the Defense Writers Group. “It’s too big a deal.”
“I think–I hope–that they’re just kind of telling us a little fib and they really are doing some thinking and some planning,” he added.
The Pentagon is already having to manage $487 billion in cuts over the next 10 years under the law, but that figure would more than double under sequestration, which is set to kick in Jan. 2 if a compromise cannot be reached between Democrats and Republicans.
McKeon steadfastly opposes any additional reductions in defense spending. And he has warned, along with many others, including defense officials and senior military brass, that sequestration would be a catastrophic for the armed forces and national security. McKeon voted for the Budget Control Act, which passed in August. Now he believes the legislation was a mistake.
“My feeling is we put ourselves in a very, very bad position,” McKeon said.
It passed because the Republican majority in the House was assured by Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) that “sequestration was so bad, that it was planned to be so bad, that it couldn’t possibly ever happen,” McKeon said.
The prospect of sequestration taking effect heightened after an ad-hoc congressional committee established by the Budget Control Act failed to meet a November deadline to agree on a budget blueprint that would reduce federal spending by $1.2 trillion over the next 10 years.
Many observers believe Congress will resolve the issue in a lame duck session after the November elections, but McKeon and other lawmakers and officials have said that leaves too little time to work through the complex problem. McKeon said the most likely outcome will be delaying the sequestration timeframe, but he argued that if postponing the January date is the best remaining option, then it should be done sooner rather than later.
That would at least ease concerns within in the defense industry and the pressure to begin planning for the layoffs industry officials have said would take place under sequestration, McKeon said.
“It’s already impacting people’s lives,” he said. “If we’re gonna kick it down the road, let’s do it now.”