Republican lawmakers worried
about a looming $500 billion cut in the Pentagon budget accused
President Barack Obama of a failure of leadership on Wednesday
for doing little to avoid reductions his own defense secretary
has said would devastate the military.
They urged Obama to bring the two political parties together
to find alternatives to the defense cuts, offering the prospect
of some revenue increases in addition to budget cuts, but still
resisting the kinds of tax increases sought by Democrats.
"There is no substitute for presidential leadership,"
Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, a member of the Senate Armed
Services Committee, told a Capitol Hill event organized by two
conservative think tanks to draw public attention to the issue.
Graham suggested Congress look for more revenue to offset a
year of the defense cuts by closing some tax breaks that benefit
few taxpayers, sell some government property and adjusting some
fees that have not been increased for a while.
"It
will be uncomfortable for some of us in the political arena to defy
certain strict ideological principles. ... But here is my response: the
hard thing was to go to Afghanistan or Iraq multiple times," Graham said.
Most Republicans have taken a pledge against raising tax
rates but in the past year some have brought up increasing fees
or closing tax loopholes to ease fiscal pressure.
"How could a commander-in-chief listen to the secretary of
defense describe what was going to happen to finest military in
the history of the world and basically be indifferent about it,"
he said. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and other senior
military officials have said the cuts would be devastating.
The Pentagon is implementing $487 billion in cuts to
projected spending over the next decade as called for last year
in the Budget Control Act, a law aimed at curbing the
government's trillion-dollar budget deficits and growing debt.
The act also established a special congressional panel to
cut another $1.2 trillion in federal spending. To try to force
the group to reach a deal, the measure included across-the-board
spending cuts that would go take effect if it failed, including
$500 billion to defense.
The group was unable to agree and the Pentagon now faces
another $500 billion in cuts over 10 years. The reductions go
into effect Jan. 2 and would slash nearly all programs
proportionally without regard to their strategic importance.
CONCERN FOR DEFENSE SUPPLIERS
Representative Buck McKeon, chairman of the Armed Services
Committee in the House of Representatives, said Obama should
have stepped to provide leadership when the committee stalemated
"but he's basically been AWOL."
Senator Kelly Ayotte, citing congressional testimony, said
the additional $500 billion reduction would force the services
to cut another 18,000 Marines and 100,000 soldiers. The size of
the Navy fleet would drop from 285 down to around 230, she said.
"The threats to our nation have not diminished ... and here
we are putting our Department of Defense in a situation where,
as (Panetta) has said, we'd be shooting ourselves in the head,"
Ayotte said.
Some budget analysts have noted that even with the
additional reductions, the defense budget would fall to 2006
levels, a much smaller drop than during previous drawdowns after
a period of war.
Industry analysts
have projected the cuts to defense could cost more than a million jobs.
Ayotte said the impact on defense industries that support the military
could jeopardize critical small business manufacturers.
"These sole suppliers cannot carry what's coming in January,"
she said, using as an example Huntington Ingalls, which designs
and builds U.S. warships and relies on sole suppliers for many
of its components. If they go out of business, she said, "they
don't just come back, and we lose capacity for our nation."
