A spending hawk in the Senate spelled out $67.9 billion in proposed Pentagon reductions yesterday, on the eve of today’s White House summit with lawmakers on fiscal matters including pending defense cuts.
Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) released a report dubbed “Department of Everything” that targets what he calls “non-defense” spending by the Pentagon. He takes aim at items in the Pentagon budget ranging from $6 billion in “non-military research and development” and $700 million spent on “alternative energy” to monies spent on running microbreweries and creating beef jerky.
Congressional leaders plan to meet today with President Barack Obama at the White House for a summit of sorts on the so-called fiscal cliff of thorny year-end budget events–including $500 billion in decade-long “sequestration” cuts to planned defense spending scheduled to start in January. While multiple lawmakers on both sides of the aisle have decried the defense sequestration cuts, few have offered details for where they would want to see Pentagon cuts in an alternate deficit-reducing plan.
The sequestration cuts face bipartisan opposition, in part because they would indiscriminately cut across the defense budget by a set percentage. Still, many observers expect any alternate plan to still include defense cuts–though less than $500 billion and targeted at specific budget items. However, congressional Democrats and Republicans and Obama have not yet agreed on whether and how to stop the politically unpopular sequestration cuts.
Coburn, an outspoken critic of government excess, said the Pentagon must be refocused on its “core mission.” He lamented that billions “of defense dollars are being spent on programs and missions that have little or nothing to do with national security, or are already being performed by other government agencies.”
Coburn’s report presents an argument the defense industry would like: “The recommendations outlined in Department of Everything could save as much as $67.9 billion or more over 10 years without cutting any Army brigade combat teams, Navy combat ships, or Air Force fighter squadrons.”
“These long overdue reforms could pay for a third of the cost of the planned fleet of new strategic bombers for the Air Force,” it says. “It could, likewise, pay a third of the cost of the fleet of Ohio-class replacement nuclear submarines for the Navy. For the Army, $16 billion over 10 years could mean robust funding for modernization or purchase of new rifles, new ammunition, and new machine guns for infantry troops.”
Coburn argues his recommendations also could help the Pentagon “reduce the need for cuts to National Guard troops, aircraft modernization, and shipbuilding.”
A number of think tanks have been holding events and releasing reports on possible defense cuts this week. For example, The Stimson Center unveiled a report dubbed “A New US Defense Strategy For A New Era: Military Superiority, Agility, And Efficiency” at the National Press Club yesterday. The report reflects the work of an independent group of experts including retired Marine Gen. James Cartwright, the former vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. It spells out potential savings in the defense budget, including $100 billion or more from “improving acquisition practices,” $520 billion through “better manpower utilization,” and up to $300 billion through “personnel compensation reform.”
Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin (D-Mich.), for his part, told reporters Wednesday he still thinks the Pentagon could weather $100 billion in cuts–instead of the $500 billion under sequestration. Levin proposed the $100 billion figure in June, and said he still thinks that figure is reasonable. Yet asked if he has looked granularly at where those $100 billion in reductions would be applied at the Pentagon, he said: “No, I have not.”