Senior members of a key House panel singled out acquisition reform and missile defense as areas to look at in the Pentagon to save money during these austere fiscal times.
Reps. Mac Thornberry (R-Texas) and Loretta Sanchez (D-Calif.)–who will hold the No. 2 spots for their parties on the House Armed Services Committee (HASC) starting in January–clashed yesterday on whether they would accept more defense cuts as part of a deal to replace the 10-year “sequestration” reductions of $500 billion slated to start next month.
Sanchez joined a small but growing number of defense-minded lawmakers from both parties who acknowledged some defense cuts may be needed in a deal to replace sequestration–which President Barack Obama and most lawmakers want to thwart. Thornberry said he prefers no additional defense cuts or taxes, yet acknowledged he likely will not get what he wants.
Thus both senior HASC members addressed, at a Washington luncheon sponsored by Politico, where they would look to find savings within defense spending plans.
Thornberry, the HASC vice chairman, said Congress and the Pentagon have the responsibility to “figure out ways to get more out of the money we spend.”
“That includes some substantial defense reforms that maybe we haven’t been willing to tackle before,” he said. He pointed to “acquisition reform,” saying that despite repeated attempts at it that “it’s worse now than it’s ever been.”
The United States is now spending 70 to 80 percent more on defense that it was in the early 1980s, but is “getting less and less” for that spending on equipment and people, Thornberry said.
“So we’re going to have to look at some of the deeper underlying causes of that, regardless of what happens with sequestration in the next couple weeks,” he said.
Sanchez argued there’s “room to cut” the defense budget beyond the $487 billion reduction already made, noting the added spending in recent years for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. But she said $500 billion in sequestration reductions is too much, suggesting $100 billion as part of a new deficit-cutting deal that includes new revenues, which Republicans have resisted. That alternate $100 billion cut also has been floated by Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC) Chairman Carl Levin (D-Mich.).
Sanchez pointed to a potential spending item she wants eliminated that is not yet planned by Pentagon, but could be authorized by Congress: an East Coast missile-interceptor location. The fiscal year 2013 defense authorization bill passed by the House authorizes $100 million to plan one, though that measure will only remain in the final legislation that will be sent to President Barack Obama if a House-Senate conference committee on the bill agrees to keep the provision.
“The two sets of (locations for) intercepts we have, Alaska and California, don’t work that well that often,” said Sanchez, the ranking member of the HASC’s Strategic Forces subcommittee. “So I’d rather get the technology right before I decide to put it somewhere else.”
Sanchez also argued against spending on “new nuclear weapons.”
While she said there are ways to cut back defense spending, Sanchez said she believes there are “also ways in which we have to invest and move forward” with the military.
Sanchez will take the Nov. 2 spot for HASC Democrats in the new session of Congress in January, following the departure of Rep. Silvestre Reyes (D-Texas), who lost his reelection bid. Thornberry, already the HASC vice chairman, will move into the No. 2 spot on the Republican side after Rep. Roscoe Bartlett (R-Md.), who also lost at the polls, leaves Congress.
The HASC announced yesterday new members that will join the panel in January, including newly elected Republicans Jim Bridenstine (Okla.), Paul Cook (Calif.), Jackie Walorski (Ind.), and Brad Wenstrup (Ohio). Reps. Kristi Noem (R-S.D.) and Richard Nugent (R-Fla.) also will serve on the HASC starting in January, when former committee member Rep. Bishop (R-Utah) will return to the Armed Services panel as well.
Senate Democrats also announced yesterday the new Democratic committee lineup. New SASC members include incoming senators Joseph Donnelly (D-Ind.), Tim Kaine (D-Va.), and Angus King (I/D-Maine). Sen. Bill Nelson (D-Fla.) will return to the SASC, on which he previously sat.