As Congress prepared to debate legislation and hear testimony this week on “sequestration” reductions to the Pentagon budget, a senior Democrat threatened yesterday to let the potential cuts take effect if Republicans won’t increase revenues.
Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.), the No. 4 Democrat in the Senate, said at a Washington think tank that “if Republicans won’t work with us on a balanced approach, we are not going to get a deal.” Murray co-chaired a bipartisan “super committee” that failed to craft a deficit-cutting plan last year.
Lawmakers including the heads of the Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC) have been meeting behind closed doors about how to craft an alternate plan to cut the federal deficit to replace the so-called sequestration cuts. Those politically-unpopular sequestration reductions, of $1.2 trillion in defense and non-defense spending over the next decade, were triggered by the super committee’s failure. Under the Budget Control Act of 2011, the cuts would reduce planned defense spending by $55 billion a year starting next January.
Democrats have called for a replacement plan to sequestration that includes new revenues, such as higher taxes for the wealthiest Americans. Some Republicans have said they could support limited revenue-raisers such as the closure of some tax loopholes.
“If we can’t get a good deal, a balanced deal that calls on the wealthy to pay their fair share, then I will absolutely continue this debate into 2013, rather than lock in a long-term deal this year that throws middle class families under the bus,” Murray said yesterday during a speech at the left-leaning Brookings Institution.
Murray, a member of the SASC and Senate Appropriations Defense subcommittee, is generally supportive of weapons programs, particularly those made by homestate employer Boeing [BA].
Her comments came a week after Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) sent a testy letter to House Armed Services Committee (HASC) Chairman Howard “Buck” McKeon (R-Calif.) in response to McKeon’s call for the Senate to take up legislation to prevent the sequestration cuts from starting next January. The House passed a bill in May to thwart the first year of sequestration cuts by reducing entitlement programs, and McKeon also proposed a one-year sequestration reprieve by reducing the federal workforce.
McKeon demanded Reid take action on anti-sequestration legislation in a June 27 letter. Reid replied in a July 12 missive that he wants both parties to agree on a new deficit-cutting plan that requires Republicans to make “difficult decisions” on revenues.
“But that will happen only when Republican leaders are finally willing to stand up to rigid ideologues and make the compromises needed,” Reid wrote.
McKeon and the rest of the HASC will hear from defense-industry leaders on Wednesday about how the sequestration cuts would impact, and already are affecting, their companies. Officials slated to testify include Lockheed Martin [LMT] Chairman and CEO Robert Stevens, who caused a stir by saying he may warn all of his employees of potential layoffs tied to sequestration reductions. He will be joined at the hearing by EADS North America Chairman and CEO Sean O’Keefe, Pratt & Whitney [UTX] President David Hess, and Williams-Pyro President Della Williams.
The Republican-led House also will debate, and likely pass, the Sequestration Transparency Act this week. The bill, approved by the House Budget Committee June 27, calls for President Barack Obama to report to Congress within 30 days of the legislation’s enactment on how spending accounts would be slashed if the sequestration cuts are not stopped. (Defense Daily, June 28).
Similar proposals have been made in the Senate, and the chamber adopted an amendment to the so-called farm bill last month from Murray and SASC Ranking Member John McCain (R-Ariz.) requiring multiple levels of disclosure on the impact of the sequestration cuts, include a report from the Pentagon by Aug. 15.
Lawmakers, meanwhile, have been reminded regularly of the impact the roughly $500 billion in defense cuts would have on their states over the nine years of sequestration reductions.
George Mason University economist Stephen Fuller projected last fall that roughly 1 million jobs would be lost if the cuts to defense go through (Defense Daily, Oct. 26, 2011). Fuller has updated his data, in a new report commissioned by the Aerospace Industries Association (AIA), which he plans to unveil today at a Capitol Hill event with politicians ranging from SASC member Sen. Kelly Ayotte (R-N.H.) to the mayor of San Diego.