Senators are examining ways to stop or at least modify the across-the-board “sequestration” cuts to the Pentagon that are slated to start in just over a month.
The $1.2 trillion in decade-long cuts, $500 billion of which would come from planned defense spending, are opposed by the White House and were once widely reviled in Congress. Yet an increasing number of lawmakers–including House Budget Committee Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) and Assistant Senate Majority Leader Dick Durbin (D-Ill.)–predict they will start on March 1 because Democrats and Republicans cannot agree on an alternate deficit-cutting plan.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) told reporters yesterday that Senate Democrats will see a “presentation” on sequestration at a retreat next week.
“We believe that there are different ways of doing sequestration,” he said. “We believe…that sequestration is there. What we think would be a better effort would be to move forward and, on short increments, pay for the sequestration.”
Reid said Democrats could offer other government savings that Republicans have supported–such as reforms related to oil companies–to offset sequestration. Yet he still stuck by his stance, which Republicans balk at, that an alternate path to sequestration include higher taxes on wealthy Americans.
Many lawmakers said they are exasperated that after more than a year of heated debate Democrats and Republicans can’t agree on a plan to cut $1.2 trillion from the federal deficit that replaces sequestration. Now, some Tea Party-aligned Republicans and liberal Democrats are even saying the cuts should be allowed as politicians deal with multiple thorny fiscal matters.
Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC) Chairman Carl Levin (D-Mich.) predicted yesterday the odds are 50-50 that sequestration will at least start in March.
“They’re real,” Levin said about the potential cuts he has been fighting against.
Levin wants to make the sequestration reductions less onerous, if they do kick in. He told reporters he wants to allow the Pentagon and other impacted agencies to have more discretion in applying the sequestration reduction, which under current law are designed to indiscriminately cut a set percentage off of budget accounts. Other lawmakers including Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Ala.), who is poised to become the ranking member on Senate Appropriations Committee, said they are examining this idea as well.
“It’s much too rigid, and it’s mindless to say that every single program gets cut by” a set percentage, Levin said. “At a minimum…you’ve got to find a way to allow the departments, even if they have to take cuts of that size–which I hope they don’t–to at least recommend to the Congress where the priorities are….In other words, to allow them to make a recommendation as to where, if they had the flexibility, they would apply a much-more-prioritized approach.”
Shelby told reporters he is working with Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Barbara Mikulski (D-Md.) on applying the sequestration cuts in a more flexible way.
“I think there’s better ways,” Shelby said. “I voted against that to begin with. I think there are a lot better ways to deal with cuts than just across-the-board cuts. I think we can be selective.”
Levin acknowledged that granting the Pentagon and other agencies more budgeting flexibility could hurt the effort to stop sequestration. That’s because if it kicks in for a short period in an across-the-board manner, lawmakers could see the negative impacts of indiscriminate cuts and fight to stop sequestration from continuing.
“I think it would make it harder to stop,” he said. “But it also is kind of a safety valve if we can’t stop it. So that is the dilemma that we have to resolve.”
Levin said he also will offer a different proposal, intended to be part of any larger package to replace sequestration, to generate revenues by closing corporate tax loopholes–an issue he has worked on for years.
The SASC will also address sequestration during a hearing before March 1, he said. Asked if he thinks the sequestration hearing will come before or after the Pentagon releases its delayed fiscal year 2014 budget proposal, Levin said he has no idea when that will actually be sent to Congress amid all the unresolved fiscal matters.
SASC member Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), meanwhile, said he is working on anti-sequestration plans with Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah). Graham said their collaboration shows that not all Tea Party-aligned lawmakers want the sequestration cuts to be made.
“He’s worried about the effect on our military and he’s very much a Tea Party guy,” Graham said after the two met yesterday. “I think he sees there’s a better way to cut $1.2 trillion.”
Graham said the two of them are “going to work really quickly” to craft “a small, medium, and large replacement” to sequestration, which would offer: “Here’s what you could do to replace it in 2013. Here’s what you do for two or three years. Here’s what you can do for 10 years.”
Graham slammed what he said is a “laissez faire, lackadaisical attitude” in Congress about the pending sequestration.
He said he also hopes to restart talks with a small group of SASC members–Levin and Sens. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Sen. Kelly Ayotte (R-N.H.)–on finding a substitute to the across-the-board cuts.
McCain, for his part, told reporters he will work with lawmakers on both sides of the aisle to address sequestration. He argued that President Barack Obama has not been involved enough in negotiations with Congress about stopping sequestration.