Playing Defense

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, are on Capitol Hill this morning to defend the Pentagon's fiscal year 2013 budget proposal before the Senate Armed Services Committee.

In explaining the Pentagon's $525.4 billion proposal for FY-13, unveiled yesterday along with an $88.5 billion war spending request, the defense secretary is making a critical point to lawmakers: don't tinker too much with DOD's plan, a “carefully balanced package that keeps America safe,” he will testify, adding:

As you take a look at the individual parts of this plan, I encourage you to do what the Department has done: to bear in mind the strategic trade-offs inherent in any particular budget decision, and the need to balance competing strategic objectives in a resource-constrained environment.

Each decision needs to be judged on the basis of the overall strategy that it supports, recognizing that unwinding any one piece puts our whole package in jeopardy. The bottom line is that I believe there is little room for modification to preserve the force and capabilities we believe are needed to protect the country and fulfill assigned missions.

Panetta, a former congressman and veteran budget hand, is also using today's hearing, the first of at least four budget presentations to Congress, to explain that the planned $259 billion in cuts assumed over the next five years -- including $111 billion sliced from modernization accounts, more than 40 percent of the reductions -- are a direct consequence of last summer's deal between Congress and the White House to reduce deficits.

No senator's constituents will escape the adverse impact of the proposed cuts, Panetta warns in his prepared testimony:

I understand how tough these issues can be, and that this is the beginning and not the end of this process. Make no mistake: the savings we are proposing will impact all 50 states. But it was this Congress that mandated, on a bi-partisan basis, that we reduce the defense budget, and we need your partnership to do this in a manner that preserves the strongest military in the world. This will be a test of whether reducing the deficit is about talk or action.

Lastly, the defense secretary cautions that congressional failure to identify a long-term deficit reduction plan this year will trigger the “goofy meat-axe” provision of the Budget Control Act, bringing total cuts to the military budget over the next decade to roughly $1 trillion.

My hope is that now that we see the sacrifice involved in reducing the defense budget by almost half a trillion dollars, Congress will be convinced of its important responsibility to make sure that we avoid sequestration. That would be a doubling of the cuts, another roughly $500 billion in additional cuts that would be required to take place through a meat-axe approach, and that we are convinced would hollow out the force and inflict severe damage on our national defense.