CQ WEEKLY – IN FOCUS
April 14, 2012 – 12:43 p.m.
States Fight Back Against National Guard Cuts
By Megan Scully, CQ Staff
Top Pentagon officials are accustomed to months of haggling with Capitol Hill over the details of the Defense Department’s annual request. This year, however, the budget battle is extending beyond Washington to state capitals across the country, where governors are rallying in opposition to a cost-cutting Air Force plan that would make deep cuts in National Guard planes and personnel.
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The governors — usually relegated to the sidelines and forced to rely on lawmakers to tweak Pentagon spending plans — are newly energized and organized to fight the Air Force’s plan, which spreads the cuts across many states. And they have a new weapon: a bipartisan council, created by a little-noticed executive order from January 2010, that is supposed to advise the Defense secretary on issues affecting their state Guard units.
The mere existence of the 10-member council has opened doors in the Pentagon — including that of Defense Secretary
It’s almost unheard-of for the Pentagon to make wholesale revisions to its budget proposal months after sending it to Congress. But the February meeting prompted Panetta to reopen the budget, forcing Air Force officials to reconsider the Air Guard cuts.
Officials on both sides of the debate call the governors’ involvement unprecedented. They have met several times with Air Force leaders, and their alternate proposal to mitigate the effects of the plan is now being considered by the Pentagon’s No. 2 civilian and military officials.
Many at the Defense Department worry about the long-term consequences if the governors prompt a revision of the budget request. How, they ask, could this affect changes the Army wants to make to its own Guard units? And what kind of control would the governors hope to exert over the two base-closure rounds the Pentagon wants to launch in 2013 and 2015?
State advocates, on the other hand, maintain that the governors, who administer their own budgets, have no interest in overstepping their boundaries here. Their goal, rather, is to ensure that the Guard’s needs are considered during budget deliberations. The current budget proposal “disproportionately impacts the Guard [and] removes from the governors the capabilities they rely on at home,” says Heather Hogsett of the National Governors Association.
‘Real Problems’
In making their case, Guard advocates have stressed that the budget request trims the active-duty Air Force’s end strength by only 1.2 percent, compared with a proposed manpower cut of 4.8 percent within the Air Guard. In terms of aircraft, the Air Guard would lose three times more planes next year than the active-duty Air Force.
“I’ve got some real problems with these proposed force reductions,” Senate Armed Services Chairman
Michigan’s Selfridge Air National Guard Base would be one of the hardest hit, with the installation slated to lose 21 A-10 close-air support aircraft and 808 positions. In the place of the A-10s, the Air Force wants to move four KC-135 aerial refueling tankers to Selfridge, which would create only 90 new positions.
Levin, who rarely weighs in on parochial defense issues, challenged the Air Force’s plan to chop the number of A-10s within the National Guard, arguing that the units had shown their ability to support combat operations in Afghanistan. In line with the Pentagon’s decision to step back from its two-war force structure, the Air Force wants to cut almost one-third of the A-10 force, with most of those planes coming from the Guard.
States Fight Back Against National Guard Cuts
“Why are we reducing Air Guard units of the A-10s?” Levin said after the hearing. “They’re effective in combat; they’re proven to be that way.”
The Air Guard also would lose 38 new C-27J cargo aircraft planned for stateside units — including Kellogg Air Guard Station in Battle Creek, Mich. — as part of the cost-cutting effort. The Air Force also plans to retire 27 C-5A aircraft from Air Guard and Reserve units, as well as 65 older C-130s, which would come mostly from the Guard and Reserve.
Air Force officials note that they are moving some key missions to the Guard, including intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance capabilities. Air Force Secretary Michael B. Donley told reporters April 5 that the service is “fully committed to the total force” and the changes strike a balance between the active and reserve during a time of deep budget cuts.
The Air Force’s arguments, however, are falling short on Capitol Hill, where lawmakers are drafting language to mitigate what they perceive to be a blow to their respective Air Guards. In addition to Michigan, some of the hardest hit states are Texas, Ohio and New York, all of which have strong representation on the House and Senate Armed Services committees.
One congressional source closely tracking the issue says the Pentagon may be better off negotiating with the governors than with Capitol Hill. Lawmakers, the aide says, may be more inclined to take a “meat cleaver” approach to the proposal. The states, on the other hand, appear willing to find a middle-of-the-road compromise.
“We understand the need to cut, but let’s look at this thing practically, where we get the best bang for the buck for the country,” says Maj. Gen. Frank Vavala, Delaware’s top Guard officer and the chairman of the board of the National Guard Association.
Boosting the Guard
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Congress inserted language in the fiscal 2008 defense authorization law that required the president to create a Council of Governors “to advise the Secretary of Defense, the Secretary of Homeland Security and the White House Homeland Security Council on matters related to the National Guard and civil support missions.”
At the time, it was just one of a spate of changes aimed at giving the heavily deployed National Guard a more powerful voice at the Pentagon. The George W. Bush administration ignored the provision, leaving it to President Obama to create the council.
Even after Obama signed the executive order, the council received much less attention than higher-profile changes, such as making the chief of the National Guard Bureau a four-star general and, most recently, elevating him to a member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. But this group of state executives could ultimately prove to be one of the most influential changes made to date on National Guard policy.
“We’re in an unprecedented place,” Vavala says. “I applaud the president for establishing the Council of Governors because it gives us that conduit of communication to the Department of Defense.”
As Defense secretary, Panetta has made a concerted effort to meet with the council on a semi-regular basis, Vavala says. Panetta also has taken its concerns seriously, directing the Air Force and the governors to attempt to negotiate a compromise palatable to the states.
States Fight Back Against National Guard Cuts
In early March, the governors, aided by their adjutants general, drafted their own plan for aircraft and personnel cuts. They assert that the proposal, which has not been made public, would save $700 million more than the Air Force’s original plan, sources tracking the issue say. The Air Guard cuts in the Pentagon budget request would save about $770 million over the next five years.
In a March 29 letter to all governors, Washington Gov.
But Donley said he felt that there were “aspects of that [plan] that were problematic.” The Air Force drafted a counterproposal, prompting more back and forth with the governors.
The issue has been kicked up to a group led by Deputy Defense Secretary Ashton B. Carter and Joint Chiefs of Staff Vice Chairman Adm. James Winnefeld, who are drafting their own alternatives.
“We are cautiously optimistic that the independent review conducted by this group will produce an alternative budget for the Air Force that will better preserve the ANG’s capabilities,” Gregoire and Branstad wrote in their letter.
In a letter to Carter, Gregoire and Branstad pledged to work with defense officials “to resolve our concerns and develop a more collaborative process for future year defense decisions.” At this point, however, the Pentagon is working out of sight of the governors.
As governors await a final decision, Hogsett said they remain hopeful that defense leaders will address their concerns. In the meantime, governors are using a tried and true tactic: working with congressional delegations to insert favorable language in the annual authorization and appropriations bills.
John M. Donnelly contributed to this story.
FOR FURTHER READING: Panetta’s Pentagon strategy, 2011 CQ Weekly, p. 2482; National Guard chief, p. 1671; fiscal 2008 defense authorization (PL 110-181), 2007 Almanac, p. 6-3.