Sen. Murray On Defense

Incoming Senate Budget Committee Chairwoman Patty Murray (D-WA) is contending that if Republicans insist on further spending cuts, defense budgets should bear an equal burden.

In a memo sent yesterday to her congressional colleagues, Murray writes that nearly three-quarters of the $2.4 trillion in deficit reduction that Congress has already passed comes from spending cuts.

Specifically on defense, the memo -- first reported today by Inside Health Policy -- states:

Prior to Congress lowering the amount of the 2013 sequester (from $109 billion to $85 billion), OMB calculated the across-the-board cut for non-exempt programs in its report to Congress pursuant to the “Sequestration Transparency Act of 2012” in September 2012. However, with the replacement of $24 billion of the previously scheduled savings, those percentages will now be lower (see Table 4).

For instance, for nondefense discretionary, the percentage reduction should fall to approximately 5.1%. For nondefense mandatory (other than for Medicare), the percentage reduction should fall to 5.3%. Finally, for defense discretionary, the percentage reduction should fall to approximately 7.3%.

Consequently:

So while we have already cut so much from discretionary funding and should find savings in other ways before we cut more, should Republicans insist on additional cuts to this small slice of the overall budget, defense should contribute at least as much as nondefense. This equal sharing of the burden of discretionary spending reductions has been a key element of every bipartisan deficit reduction proposal, including Simpson-Bowles.

View the full memo.