President Barack Obama said last Friday he stands by his desire to slash “hundreds of billions” more in longterm defense spending than his previous goal of a $400 billion cut to security funding.
Obama spoke to reporters about the status of difficult negotiations with congressional leaders over crafting a plan for cutting the national debt. He hopes to reach a deal with Congress by the end of this week that includes a plan to raise the nation’s debt ceiling.
He told congressional leaders he wants a “big” plan to stabilize the nation’s finances that includes a combination of new taxes and spending cuts, to areas including the Pentagon.
“I’ve said that in addition to the $400 billion that we’ve already (proposed to) cut from defense spending, we’re willing to look for hundreds of billions more,” Obama said at the White House.
‘To the chagrin of a defense-industry group, Obama did not share any specific reductions he wants. He did, however, say he rejected some defense cutting plans proposed by a bipartisan commission last year.
Obama unveiled on April 13 a deficit-cutting plan that would cut $400 billion in “security” spending by 2023 as part of an effort to save $4 trillion in federal spending overall. He said on June 29 that more than $400 billion in cuts were needed, even though “the preference of the Pentagon would be not to cut any more, because they feel like they’ve already given.”
Obama told reporters last Friday that he rejected some of the defense-cutting proposals from his bipartisan National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform, which was chaired by Erskine Bowles, chief of staff to previous President Bill Clinton, and Alan Simpson, a former Republican senator from Wyoming.
The commission last year proposed balancing the nation’s budget in five years partly by cutting $100 billion from the Pentagon. Though an interim report spelled out a raft of weapon-system cuts, the commission’s final report did not detail Pentagon programs to be eliminated (Defense Daily, Dec. 6, 2010).
Obama said there were aspects of the Bowles-Simpson recommendations that were “not the approach I would take,” including on Pentagon funding.
“On defense spending, a huge amount of their savings on the discretionary side came out of defense spending,” the president said last Friday. “I think we need to cut defense, but as commander in chief, I’ve got to make sure that we’re cutting it in a way that recognizes we’re still in the middle of a war, we’re winding down another war, and we’ve got a whole bunch of veterans that we’ve got to care for as they come home.” For the commission’s defense proposals, he said, “we have taken some but not all the recommendations, because it’s important for it to be consistent with our defense needs and our security needs.”
Aerospace Industries Association (AIA) President and CEO Marion Blakey last Friday, in reaction to Obama’s comments that day, called for politicians to offer more specifics on defense spending reductions. She lamented that for months varied parties in Washington have called for “severe cuts that would undermine our dominance in the skies, fail to recognize the dynamic and changing security realities that we face in an age of asymmetrical warfare and which would undermine our industrial base and research capabilities for decades.”
“Instead of hiding behind abstract numbers pulled from thin air, it’s time for everyone to put their cards on the table,” Blakey said in a statement. “Those calling for indiscriminate additional cuts should explain specifically how and why these cuts will not cost jobs or compromise our national security.”
She lauded Obama for, when asked about additional defense cuts, saying “that we are still in the midst of two wars, suggesting that we need a dose of sobriety when it comes to cuts beyond those already made.”
Still, Blakey said industry wants specifics.
“Budget proposals that fail to spell out how we maintain that second-to-none status (for U.S. aerospace and defense) are not proposals at all, but rather are merely rhetorical posturing,” she argued. “And the abstract calls of some for hundreds of billions in additional cuts don’t seem very sober at all.”
During his final press conference before retiring, former Defense Secretary Robert Gates told reporters on June 16 that a comprehensive review at the Pentagon will determine if the $400 billion in security cuts previously proposed by Obama is the right amount or too much (Defense Daily, June 17).