By NICK SCHWELLENBACH
This morning, the Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC) held a hearing on the nomination of Ashton Carter as the 30th deputy secretary of defense, the number two slot at the Department of Defense (DoD). Carter is currently the Pentagon’s Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology, and Logistics.
Senators on the SASC hit Carter with a range of questions, but the prospect of significant reductions in the DoD's budget loomed as the largest overarching issue raised at the hearing.
“Last year, former Secretary Gates approved roughly $180 billion in cuts to defense programs,” Chairman Carl Levin (D-MI) said in his opening written statement. “The recent legislation on the debt ceiling calls for an additional $400 billion in reductions in security spending over a 10-year period, with the possibility of far deeper cuts if the joint committee is unable to reach agreement and a sequester is triggered.”
Sequestration would be an automatic cut of $600 billion in security spending levels across the board over ten years, rather than targeted reductions. The DoD has said they prefer targeted cuts. According to Carter, sequestration would lead to abandonment of major weapon systems, cutting training, and furloughing employees. He said that sequestration is arbitrary and would deprive DoD of the opportunity to make choices. The DoD “can’t buy three-fourths of an aircraft carrier,” Carter said, referring to a hypothetical sequestration cut of 25 percent (although that is not the percentage DoD would really face if sequestration actually takes place).
The Bipartisan Policy Center explains how DoD budgets would get hit if sequestration is fully implemented:
For defense, almost the entire $55 billion is cut from discretionary budget authority (since non-exempt mandatory spending on defense is less than $2 billion). In 2013, this amounts to approximately a 10 percent cut (on top of the cuts that are made initially through the discretionary caps in the BCA). In 2021, since the defense discretionary baseline grows, but the required dollar cut does not, the $55 billion amounts to an 8.5 percent cut in 2021.
While sequestration was vehemently opposed in statements made by many members of the SASC, some powerful members of the SASC still said some reductions are necessary. The SASC will play a powerful role in influencing the direction of the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction, also known as the Super Committee. The Super Committee will be consulting with standing congressional committees on areas of potential cuts.
“The required reductions will require a careful review of every program and expenditure in the defense budget and tough decisions to balance the requirements of today's force and current military missions against investment in needed preparations for the threats of tomorrow,” Levin said. “Unless we impose much greater discipline on our acquisition process and bring down the costs of our weapons programs, we are unlikely to achieve this objective.”
Similarly, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), the SASC's ranking member, said in his written statement, “A culture that has allowed massive waste of taxpayers’ dollars has become business-as-usual at the Department of Defense.”
In response to questions, Carter stated that many areas of defense spending – such as personnel costs, overseas bases, acquisition – are “on the table,” although he warned that he, like Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta, are afraid of hollowing out the DoD. He said, “the performance of the [acquisition] system is still not acceptable,” although he said some progress has been made with the implementation of the Weapon System Acquisition Reform Act of 2009 and DoD initiative called “Better Buying Power.”
Nick Schwellenbach is the POGO Director of Investigations
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