FOR THE RECORD CONGRESSIONAL UPDATE
FY13 BUDGET CYCLE KICKS OFF IN CONGRESS With the federal deficit higher than ever and the drawdown of forces from Iraq and soon from Afghanistan, DoD has been tasked with slashing billions of dollars from its budgets for FY13 to FY21 without diminishing the military’s ability to protect the Nation. As expected, when DoD leaders unveiled their first crack at a budget-constrained Pentagon, the backlash on Capitol Hill was immediate, varied, and vehement.
In the FY10 Department of Defense Appropriations Act passed by Congress Oct. 6, 2009, the military received a record-high $671 billion for the coming year. That number included $528 bil- lion for the Pentagon’s base budget and another $162 billion for overseas contingency operations (OCO), plus another $1 billion in a supplemental appropriations bill passed in 2010. Over the next two fiscal years (FY11 and FY12), the base budget rose incrementally, while the OCO budget dropped by nearly $50 billion as active combat operations in Iraq came to a close. Law- makers applauded outgoing Secretary of Defense Dr. Robert M. Gates and his successor, Leon E. Panetta, for making hard choices and finding efficiencies in DoD’s budget.
That steady, rational decline in military funding was funda- mentally derailed last August when Congress passed the Budget Control Act (BCA) of 2011. In lieu of a proper FY12 Budget Res- olution, the BCA set spending caps for all federal discretionary spending in order to cut the federal deficit by $917 billion over the next decade. The BCA also mandated the creation of a Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction (JSCDR), popularly known as the “super committee,” to draft broader deficit reduction legisla- tion. The panel was tasked with cutting at least $1.2 trillion from the national debt over the next 10 years through a possible com- bination of entitlement reforms, discretionary spending cuts, and revenue increases via taxes, levees, and tariffs.
The “super committee” failed. The Nov. 23, 2011 deadline set by the BCA came and went without any proposals from the JSCDR. The committee’s lack of action automatically triggered a process known as sequestration. Under sequestration, mandatory and dis- cretionary federal spending will be cut by $1.2 trillion over the next decade. The cuts will be split evenly between security and non-security spending, costing the DoD anywhere from $400 billion to $600 billion if sequestration comes to pass.
The sequestration will take effect in January 2013 unless Con- gress acts before then to undo the BCA. President Barack Obama has said that he will veto any bill that seeks to reverse any part of sequestration without putting forward a comprehensive deficit reduction plan that includes revenue raisers as well as spending cuts. Thus the onus is on Congress to debate high-level fiscal issues during a presidential election year. Observers both within
FOUR ISSUES THAT MAY DOMINATE DEBATE ON FY13 DEFENSE BILLS
While Members of Congress have expressed a wide variety of concerns with the DoD FY13 budget request, four main areas seem poised to dominate the debate going forward. While the defense committees have expressed a desire to complete action on the FY13 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) and the FY13 September 30 Department of Defense Appropriations Act before the end of FY12 on Sept. 30, the following issues may slow the debate down considerably.
1. BRAC Panetta has called for another two rounds of the Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) process. Members of Congress have questioned the actual savings generated by past BRAC rounds.
2. Personnel Programs The FY13 DoD budget plan includes measures to “slow the growth in compensation costs” by lowering pay raises and recalculating the basic housing and subsis- tence allowances. The plan also includes TRICARE benefit cost sharing proposals and a new Military Health System strategy.
3. The Nuclear Arsenal Expect HASC Republicans to push for a provision in the FY13 NDAA to prevent the administration from taking the nuclear arsenal below the 1,500 level. That provision will likely not be mirrored in the SASC bill, forcing a difficult conference.
4. Shipbuilding The New England contingents of the congressional defense committees will push for additional shipbuilding funding even at the expense of other procurement programs.
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Army AL&T Magazine
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