Defense Secretary Leon Panetta pressed lawmakers to reverse sequestration, telling NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday that allowing the automatic defense cuts to go into effect March 1 “would be a shameful, irresponsible act.” Panetta said the department began preparing last month for the looming spending reductions because lawmakers began saying they were willing to let the across-the-board reductions go forward …
With the prospects uncertain at best of averting almost $500 billion in defense spending reductions over the next nine years, lawmakers have begun to discuss providing the Pentagon the flexibility to move funds between accounts as a way to manage the across-the-board cuts. For different reasons, though, it will prove difficult to get both parties to pass legislation allowing DOD to reprogram funds …
The top two lawmakers on the Senate Appropriations Committee are discussing alternative spending reductions that would replace at least some of the $85 billion in automatic, government-wide cuts slated to go into effect March 1. At this point, Committee Chair Barbara Mikulski (D-Md.) and Richard Shelby (R-Ala.) are looking at only alternate spending cuts and skipping talk of possible ways to raise revenue by eliminating tax breaks or increasing taxes on corporations …
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said Thursday he plans to move legislation to replace the automatic, government-wide spending reductions with a mix of alternate cuts and new revenue from eliminating tax loopholes for corporations and upper-income Americans. The plan almost certainly will conflict with a measure House Republicans are considering, which likely will rely on changes to entitlement programs to replace the sequester …
In a contentious, eight-hour hearing Thursday, former Nebraska Sen. Chuck Hagel (R) defended his past record, and, while struggling at times to explain some of his positions, President Obama’s nominee to become the next defense secretary appeared to remain on course to helm the Pentagon. Hagel rejected the claim that he supports sequestration, saying, instead, that he agrees with Defense Secretary Leon Panetta’s stance that the deep, across-the-board spending reductions scheduled to take effect next month are a bad idea …
The Pentagon has not yet made a final decision to furlough civilian employees in the event of sequestration, a senior official said Thursday in response to media reports indicating a decision already had been reached. “There are congressional notification requirements prior to any DOD furloughs, and we may see a decision in the next few weeks to notify Congress that the department may need to furlough in the event of sequestration …
The White House likely won’t be finished preparing its fiscal 2014 budget request until March, putting its release four or more weeks behind schedule. “Passbacks” — the point at which the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) submits drafts of the proposed budget to agencies ahead of one or more rounds of negotiations — only began this week. They usually occur in late November. As a result, officials probably will need until March to complete the budget, reported CQ News. On Tuesday a DOD official said the draft budget it received from OMB was incomplete, leaving a number of outstanding issued to be addressed. The White House is supposed to submit the annual budget to Congress by the first Monday in February, which is Feb. 4 this year.
As the threat that automatic defense cuts of about $45 billion will be triggered draws closer, the sense of pessimism regarding the willingness of the two parties to negotiate an alternate savings plan also rises. This week Deputy Defense Secretary Ash Carter became the first Pentagon official to acknowledge that sequestration is likely. “From what I hear, I have to conclude that it is more likely than unlikely that we’ll actually have to do this,” Carter said of the cuts. “We are serious about being ready …
Legislation introduced last week by Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R) would require the Air Force to wait for multiple milestones to be reached before it could shift the 18th Aggressor Squadron’s 21 F-16s from Eielson Air Force Base in Fairbanks to Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson near Anchorage. The realignment was one of the moves the Air Force included last year in its fiscal 2013 budget request that proposed trimming the service’s force structure, primarily by eliminating aircraft and personnel from the Air National Guard and Air Force Reserve …
Senate Democrats are considering alternate spending cuts and new tax revenue as part of a proposal to replace the $85 billion in fiscal 2013 spending cuts slated to go into effect March 1. The tax options would avoid calls to raise taxes on upper-income Americans and, instead, seek to eliminate a host of tax breaks for businesses and other loopholes, reported CQ News. “We believe that there are different ways of doing sequestration,” Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said Tuesday …