DOD Budget Boom 'Over'

Panetta, a former Office of Management and Budget chief during the Clinton administration and a former House Budget Committee chairman, delivered this assessment on the future of Pentagon spending to Senate Armed Services Committee:

The days of large growth and unlimited defense budgets are over. Our challenge will be to design budgets, eliminate wasteful and duplicative spending, while protecting those core elements that we absolutely need for our nation's defense.

He added:

I do not believe, based on my long experience in government and working with budgets, that we have to choose between strong fiscal discipline and strong national defense. I don't deny there are going to be tough decisions that have to be made and tough choices that have to be made. But we owe it to our citizens to provide both strong fiscal discipline and a strong national defense.

Sen. Carl Levin (D-MI), Senate Armed Services Committee chairman, pressed Panetta to explain how much of the $400 billion the president wants cut from national security over 12 years will come from the Pentagon, and how much of those reductions would come in FY-12.

Panetta said he did not know the answer.

“Can you try to find that out for us, because we need to find that out, and give us an answer for the record?” Levin asked.

“I will certainly ask whether that decision has been made,” Panetta replied.