CQ TODAY ONLINE NEWS – DEFENSE
Sept. 19, 2011 – 7:04 p.m.
Republican Hawks Seek Alliances to Protect Defense Spending From Cuts
By Frank Oliveri, CQ Staff
As a special deficit-fighting panel gets down to business, Republican defense hawks are hoping to persuade their colleagues to draw the line on defense spending cuts at roughly $350 billion over 10 years.
House Armed Services Chairman
The new debt limit law (PL 112-25) imposes discretionary spending caps that are expected to hold defense spending at roughly $350 billion below the Obama administration’s projected levels over the next 10 years.
Even deeper cuts are possible under a sequestration process if deficit reduction recommendations from the Joint Select Deficit Reduction Committee are not enacted later this year. Failure to reach a deal that identifies at least $1.2 trillion in spending reductions over 10 years could trigger an additional $450 billion in defense spending reductions, according to the Congressional Budget Office.
“They need to know what this means in real terms,” McKeon said.
If he and his colleagues succeed in persuading the caucus to wall off defense from further reductions, lawmakers will be left with entitlement programs, non-defense discretionary spending and tax increases to achieve the required savings.
Sen.
McKeon’s panel is preparing an analysis for the deficit reduction committee on what he called a potential “hollowing out” of the U.S. military that would result from reduced defense spending over the next decade.
The document, to be submitted to the deficit committee in the coming weeks, is expected to include House Armed Services’ estimate of the consequences of steep cuts, including deep personnel reductions and a scaling back of the number of units such as brigades, carrier battle groups and squadrons.
Meanwhile, the defense-oriented committees are still trying to process all the ramifications of the debt ceiling law. For example, the Democratic leaders of the Senate Armed Services Committee were under the mistaken impression that the $350 billion in defense savings over 10 years would be counted as part of the minimum $1.2 trillion the joint committee was expected to find by Nov. 23. That, however, is not the case, and the Senate panel will be expected to offer further cuts when it provides its own recommendations to the deficit committee by mid-October.
The opening stage of implementing spending caps occurred last week when the Senate Appropriations Committee approved a $513 billion fiscal 2012 base Defense spending measure (
The Defense appropriations measure is $26 billion less than the president requested and $17 billion less than the House-passed Defense spending bill (
Appealing to the Caucus
Republican Hawks Seek Alliances to Protect Defense Spending From Cuts
McKeon said he expects to make a presentation in coming weeks to the entire Republican Conference about the implications for defense should the Pentagon be subjected to reductions that go beyond the $350 billion reduction.
But Rep.
Asked where Republicans writ large would be willing to draw the line on defense spending reductions, Akin, R-Mo., said, “I wish I knew the answer to that.”
Indeed, many Republicans have yet to make up their minds on the issue.
When asked whether he would consider walling off defense from further reductions,
Akin said Republicans focused on protecting national security spending are trying to get beyond “gross numbers.”
“We’re trying to make it more vivid to people,” Akin said.
He said the planned reductions would mean fewer aircraft carrier battle groups, significant troop reductions, possible Pentagon layoffs and potentially another round of base closings. Further reductions could also mean layoffs within the defense industrial base that would be felt in home districts, Akin said.
“And we will be lacking in capability,” he said.
The challenge national security Republicans face is that, a decade ago, “everyone in the party was a defense hawk,” Akin said. But the elections in 2010 brought to Washington a large number of fiscal conservatives who generally have not been focused on defense matters.
Akin also acknowledged that the Pentagon’s poor management of acquisition programs — even as its budget doubled over the past decade — undercuts the pro-defense argument.
Apart from simply convincing fiscally conservative members of his caucus, McKeon has indicated that he believes he could deliver at least 30 votes from his committee to block deeper defense reductions, and Rep.
In the Senate, Republican Minority Whip