Sen. Kelly Ayotte (R-NH) discusses defense cuts issue at a panel
WASHINGTON — With negotiation on how to fix America’s $1.2 trillion budget loophole in limbo on Capitol Hill, politicians and defense industry experts worry that the inaction could deeply hurt the nation as a whole.
New Hampshire Republican Sen. Kelly Ayotte, along with three national security experts, called for Congress to act immediately to address sequestration — a budget-control plan that will cut more than half a trillion dollars from the Pentagon’s budget starting in January.
At a panel discussion Tuesday, Ayotte, a ranking member of the Senate Armed Services subcommittee on readiness and management support, said the plan is “irresponsible” and “not strategic at all.”
“This is a smoldering fire that is about to light up in a big way,” Ayotte told about 40 representatives of the defense industry.
Under the sequestration plan, the Defense Department would face about $600 billion in automatic cuts over the next decade. These cuts are on top of $487 billion in reductions already planned for next year.
The additional cuts are a consequence of a bipartisan supercommittee’s failure to trim the nation’s $1.2 trillion deficit.
Ayotte voted against last year’s bipartisan agreement to raise the nation’s debt ceiling. She said that though cuts in military spending are necessary, Congress and the White House should consider a “responsible” way.
“Our military leaders have described the cuts as painful but doable,” Ayotte said, “But what we have to talk about is what Defense Secretary Leon Panetta called ‘shooting ourselves in the head.’”
Ayotte said she and her committee had heard many top-level military officials testifying about the potential risks brought by sequestration. Many defense experts also agreed that a budget agreement should account for the nation’s military readiness, defense industrial base and impact to the economy. Experts worry that massive layoffs in the defense industry are inevitable if Congress holds up the deal until after November’s elections.
“The defense industry cannot operate at this level of uncertainty,” said Steven Bucci, senior research fellow for Defense and Homeland Security at the Heritage Foundation. “This is going to have an effect that ripple over across the economy of the country and touch a lot of people.”
The House Budget Committee is also trying to get a clearer picture of the pain of sequestration so that officials can see what is at stake. It is working on legislation that, if enacted, would require a report from the president about details of the across-the-board cuts. The Senate passed similar legislation last week. The bill would have to be signed by President Obama, however, and the White House may not see any political advantage to signing it before the election when Congress is unlikely to reach a budget deal until after the election.
Lawmakers have also talked of a three- to six-month delay in the cuts, punting the issue to the next Congress.
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Military Times staff writer Rick Maze contributed to this report