By Emelie Rutherford
Defense Secretary Robert Gates wants to unveil his recommended cuts for the fiscal year 2010 Pentagon budget before the White House’s official defense proposal is sent to Congress, a top senator said yesterday.
Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC) Chairman Carl Levin (D-Mich.) also told reporters at a breakfast in Washington that he expects to see “some big cuts in [the fiscal year] ’10” defense budget, and he does not believe all anticipated and sizable reductions will be delayed until the FY ’11 spending plan.
“I do expect that there will be some very difficult and painful decisions for whoever bears the impact, whatever state bears the impact, whatever branch of the service feels that they lost out on it,” Levin told the Defense Writers Group.
The senator said Gates wants to “take a novel approach to the budget this year” and “disclose his recommendations early, before we get the budget.”
There has been buzz on Capitol Hill about Gates making a pre-budget-release announcement regarding program changes. House Appropriations Defense subcommittee Chairman John Murtha (D-Pa.) told reporters last week the defense secretary may “make an announcement about all the programs” this week. There also have been rumblings about Gates briefing the heads of the four congressional defense panels on the budget in mid-April, before the White House submits the official budget to Congress the second week of May.
Levin cited several possible motives for Gates releasing his defense budget recommendations before the White House has reviewed–and likely changed–the defense secretary’s proposal.
“One (reason) is it leaks anyway,” Levin said. “Once his recommendation goes to…(the White House’s Office of Management and Budget), OMB, and then goes to the president, there’s leakage. So he can avoid the leakage by just simply saying, ‘This is what I’m recommending to the president.'”
This would help “avoid all of that pressure that comes from the leaks that the contractors will then place on OMB and on the president,” Levin said.
This move also would force the defense secretary to take responsibility for “painful cuts,” the senator said.
“He can be kind of a heat shield, because if he does it early and says ‘I’m recommending a cut in this program,’ he’ll get the heat for it,” Levin said. “That doesn’t mean the president and OMB won’t get it, it just means they get less of it.”
Levin praised Gates and said such a budget disclosure would be “a professional thing for the secretary to do.”
Gates is seen as having high approval in the Department of Defense and is not expected to serve for all of President’s Obama’s term.
Levin acknowledged if Gates unveils his budget plan early there still could be “very strong pushback”–from parties such as contractors and lawmakers–for the White House to change it before signing off on it.
OMB announced last month the FY ’10 defense budget request will be for $533.7 billion, which is a 4 percent increase from FY ’09 yet also includes some war funding not in previous base budgets. Gates told lawmakers in January he wants to make targeted budget cuts instead of across-the-board reductions.
Levin said the SASC has heard the defense budget will not be submitted to Congress by the previously expected deadline of April 21. Other lawmakers and aides also have confirmed this delayed deadline.
“The implications are that it makes our authorization bill later and later,” the SASC chairman said. “And that puts more and more pressure on our staff to get it done in a shorter period of time.
The senator said he has “no idea where” cuts will be made in the FY ’10 budget. He deflected reporters’ questions on the paths ahead for programs including the Army’s Future Combat Systems, the Navy’s F/A-18E/F Super Hornet, and the Air Force’s F-22 fighter jet, and declined to say if he would support a dual procurement for the air services’ replacement aerial-refueling tanker.