It now appears quite likely that following this year’s election the
Budget Control Act will be either suspended (“kicked down the road”) or
amended in order to avoid the $110 billion sequester of discretionary
budget funds, half of which will come out of national security accounts,
mostly from the Department of Defense. The intensive political
negotiations on Budget Control Act amendment will begin in November with
$50+ billion in DoD budget cuts on the table under current law. Of
course, the composition of future budgets and any fiscal compromise will
depend on who is President in 2013 and the balance of power in
Congress.
Although Pentagon boosters are fond of calling the 9-10% budget cut in
the current law “draconian” and “dangerous” it does not amount to much
when put in context of what our enemies and potential opponents spend. A
new PDA summary of global military spending called USA and Allies Outspend Potential Rivals on Military by Four-to-One: America Carries Much of the Defense Burden for its Allies tells the story.
A $50 billion reduction in U.S. defense spending results in a ratio of 3.8 to 1 (between the U.S. and allies to the un-allied
set of current and potential opponents.) A 4 to 1 spending superiority
is extraordinary overmatch, and a 3.8 to 1 overmatch is also
extraordinary. We might want to return attention to this matter when
and if the overmatch is merely 2 to 1. Meanwhile we can continue to
make judicious cuts to the DoD spending for quite some time.
When an amended Budget Control program is negotiated later this year
and early next PDA believes there should be no less than $12 billion
(2.3%) in additional DoD cuts in FY13. With concern about the still
weak economy we favor phasing-in deeper cuts over the next four years.
We think the Pentagon should be trimming back to circa 2006 levels as
quickly as the services can reasonably be expected to adapt and the
economy can absorb the decline in Federally supported jobs.
The specifics of a readily available set of program cuts worth $17-20 billion in 2013 are listed in PDA's Defense Sense.
Rep. Barbara Lee (CA) has introduced an amendment to the FY13 House
Appropriations bill cutting DoD’s budget by $19.2 billion. This is an
appropriate and reasonable cut for the coming year.
