Hawkish senators plan to share more information today about their attempts to prevent the Pentagon from receiving up to $600 billion in long-term cuts, which may have triggered by lawmakers’ failure to craft a budget-cutting plan.
“A group of us are going to try to find a way to achieve $1.2 trillion in savings without destroying the Defense Department,” Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC) member Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) told reporters yesterday at the Capitol.
“We’re going to…try to find bipartisan spending cuts and generate revenue,” he said. “We’re going to do the whole bit.”
Graham is working with senators including Sens. John McCain (R-Ariz.), Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.), Joseph Lieberman (I/D-Conn.), and Kelly Ayotte (R-N.H.). They plan to hold a press conference today to “announce an effort to replace the defense sequester with other federal savings,” McCain’s office said late yesterday.
The Pentagon could face the so-called sequestration cuts, of $500 billion to $600 billion, under the Budget Control Act of 2011 that President Barack Obama signed in August. Those cuts are on top of reductions of $450 billion from the Pentagon’s long-term spending plans already approved by the law.
The act says if the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction–or “super committee”–could not craft a plan to cut at least $1.2 trillion in federal spending by Nov. 23 that passes Congress by Dec. 23, a sequestration mechanism would automatically trigger $1.2 trillion in cuts in January 2013, with half coming from the Pentagon. The committee failed to craft a plan last month, leading defense-minded lawmakers to question how they can prevent the sequestration cuts to the military.
Obama said on Nov. 21, the day the super committee announced defeat, that he would “veto any effort to get rid of those automatic spending cuts to domestic and defense spending.” He said he wanted congressional Democrats and Republicans to agree on a large-scale deficit-cutting plan.
“There will be no easy off-ramps on this one,” Obama told reporters at the time. “We need to keep the pressure up to compromise, not turn off the pressure.”
Graham, arguing the sequestration cuts would “destroy the military,” said he is “working on an alternative” with the other senators.
He gave only the rough outlines on the alternative plan, which he said would identify $1.2 trillion in non-defense savings and prevent sequestration.
To do that, he said, he and his partners want to “just sit down with our group of members and say, ‘This is something we should achieve as a body. You’re destroying the Defense Department.’”
He argued the defense budget has already been cut enough by the Budget Control Act, which already reduced the Pentagon’s 10-year spending plans by $450 billion.
Graham and McCain said Nov. 21 they were working on a plan “to minimize the impact of the sequester on the Department of Defense and to ensure that any cuts do not leave us with a hollow military.”
House Armed Services Committee Chairman Howard “Buck” McKeon (R-Calif.) also pledged that day to introduce legislation to prevent the sequestration cuts to defense.
Lawmakers, though, found crafting such plans was not easy. McCain told reporters Dec. 5 he “honest to God” didn’t know if he and Graham could stop the sequestration reductions to the military.
“Everybody’s all over the map,” McCain said at the time. “There’s so many different divisions….Things that Lindsey and I have talked about with others they don’t agree with, so we’re still working on it.”
McCain said back in early November that he and Graham were working on an alternate plan to sequestration that included defense savings.
“Lindsey Graham and I and some others are working on a plan where maybe we could enact further savings and efficiencies, but certainly not the kind that are envisioned by the sequestration action if that eventuality should arise,” he said on Fox News Nov. 8.
McCain is the ranking member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, on which Lieberman, Graham, and Ayotte serve. Kyl is the No. 2 Senate Republican.