Levin on Defense Cuts

The head of the Senate defense authorization panel is rejecting further discretionary cuts to the Defense Department's budget, but supporting proposals to reform the military retirement and health care systems.

Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Sen. Carl Levin (D-MI) is formally joining the chorus of lawmakers and defense officials claiming that the Pentagon's budgets should be left alone by the 12-lawmaker debt reduction supercommittee in its quest to find $1.5 trillion in savings over the next decade. “I am unable to recommend further discretionary cuts to DOD's budget as part of the Joint Select Committee's deficit-reduction proposal, particularly prior to the completion of the strategy-driven review currently being conducted by DOD,” Levin writes in a letter sent today to the supercommittee.

He notes that DOD faces the task of finding $450 billion in savings over the next 10 years “in the midst of multiple wars.”

However, Levin says he would support recommendations to reform the military retirement system and revise the TRICARE health benefit that could come out of an Obama-proposed commission. The president's proposals should be modified slightly, Levin writes. He also calls for expanding the scope of the commission to include all aspects of military compensation.

Today, the House Armed Services Committee also sent a letter to the supercommittee calling for no defense cuts.

If the supercommittee is unable to find at least $1.2 trillion in savings, it triggers a sequestration mechanism, which would cut DOD's budget by nearly $600 billion. Levin called this possibility “disastrous.”