Defense Secretary Declares War On Budget Control Act As Hollow Force Looms
Defense Secretary Declares War On Budget Control Act As Hollow Force Looms by Loren Thompson, Forbes
One day after Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel disclosed details of the Obama Administration’s proposed defense budget for fiscal 2015, I joined a group of analysts and journalists at the Pentagon to discuss the budget request with him. Hagel largely reiterated what he had said the previous day, but two things quickly became apparent in our meeting. First, he is determined to move the nation’s military posture into a new era as the bulk of U.S. forces departs Afghanistan. Second, he thinks the 2011 Budget Control Act capping annual defense expenditures is one of the stupidest, most irresponsible exertions of congressional authority in modern times.
Apparently much of Congress agrees with him on the budget law, because three years after it began taking effect, legislators still have not permitted the full impact of the cuts contained in the law to be felt at the Pentagon or domestic agencies. The most recent palliative, known as the Bipartisan Budget Act, scaled back mandated reductions in fiscal 2014 and 2015 (the budget year beginning October 1). But the relief provided in 2015 is modest, and thereafter the strictures of the 2011 law remain in effect into the next decade. Hagel says that if the reductions are not scaled back or removed, the joint force will be smaller, less ready, and less well equipped than national security requires…
