Sequestration Opposition

Travis Sharp, a fellow with the Center for a New American Security, argues in a policy paper released this morning that allowing the defense budget to go into sequestration would be a really bad idea:

Sequestration is an irresponsible way to reduce defense spending for three reasons. First, the large amount of cuts imposed by sequestration will make it difficult for the U.S. military to pursue its longstanding and generally successful strategy of global engagement. Second, the sudden and inflexible process for implementing cuts under sequestration will unnecessarily damage U.S. defense capabilities. Third, sequestration already has failed to achieve its sole purpose, which was to encourage the "super committee" to compromise.

For these reasons, Congress should pass bipartisan legislation to repeal sequestration as soon as possible, and President Obama should sign it. Congress and President Obama should replace sequestration with a bipartisan process to negotiate a comprehensive deficit-reduction package. This type of process has failed before and probably will not make much progress during a presidential election year. Nevertheless, it is the most responsible framework for pursuing changes to federal budgetary priorities. In the meantime, the Budget Control Act's $487 billion level of defense cuts should stand. If Congress and the president decide to make further defense cuts beyond that level, they should implement those cuts gradually and flexibly, while remembering that they must accept more national security risk as the amount of cuts increases.