Sequestration needs to be stopped

Members of Congress are more interested in winning re-election in November than in removing before then the budget "sequestration" knife that threatens to lop 10 percent off 2,500 defense programs starting Jan. 2.

That was the signal that lawmakers sent at a House Armed Services Committee hearing this month where the White House budget director and the deputy defense secretary explained how sequestration would shred defense budgets and degrade force readiness if Congress fails to block the process by negotiating a new $1.2 trillion debt-reduction deal.

But the higher priority for committee members, suggested its chairman, is staying in office. That helped to explain the disdain for bipartisanship shown at the hearing, ostensibly called to gather facts on the approaching sequestration crisis.

The most telling moment came after Rep. Robert Andrews, D-N.J., listed some of the tough budget cuts he would support to stop sequestration, including delaying eligibility for Medicare and Social Security for younger workers, and paring federal funds for beach erosion, if colleagues agreed to cut their favored programs for their states like crop subsidies.

Rep. Howard "Buck" McKeon, R-Calif., committee chairman, told Andrews he applauded his willingness to float such controversial ideas.

"However, many (colleagues) who are facing election in November, who are in tighter races, are not going to step up and do that," McKeon said.

"If the chairman would yield," interrupted Andrews for some dry wit. "My race may have just gotten a lot tighter."

As the laughter died away, Andrews added with seriousness, "We have been pushing things out to the future around here for about 40 years. We keep having commissions and delays, and that's what's got us into this problem. I think the time is (here) for us to make some decisions."

McKeon agreed. But Republican colleagues had another priority, pinning blame for sequestration on President Obama because he signed the deal — called the Budget Control Act — that Republicans and Democrats had negotiated last August to avoid defaulting on the nation's debt.

Jeffrey Zients, acting director of the Office of Management and Budget, rejected all such charges, telling House Republicans they created the debt ceiling crisis, voted with Democrats to accept sequestration as an enforcing mechanism to get a "balanced" budget deal, and now refuse the "balance" by opposing tax increases of any kind, including on the richest Americans.

"There are five months remaining for Congress to act," Zients told Rep. J. Randy Forbes, R-Va., during in a long and heated exchange.

"What is holding us up right now is the Republican refusal to have the top 2 percent pay their fair share."

The Budget Control Act directed a trillion-dollar cut in federal spending over 10 years including $487 billion from defense. It also established a "super committee" of Senate and House members with power to design and push to enactment another $1.5 trillion in deficit reduction initiatives.

The law also directed that, if no deal came from the super committee by last Christmas, and none did, then an automatic across-the-board cut, called sequestration, would fall on all "non-exempt" federal programs, starting Jan. 2, 2013. The Defense Department's share would another $500 billion, or $55 billion a year through year 2021.

A day before the Aug. 1 hearing, President Obama announced that he would exercise his prerogative under the budget law to exempt military personnel accounts from sequestration for at least next year. He did so to signal support for troops, Carter said, but also because a sudden 10-percent cut in military personnel accounts would be impractical to implement quickly, given that military members can't be furloughed like civilian employees.

Tom Philpott can be contacted at Military Update, P.O. Box 231111, Centreville, Va. 20120-1111, or by e-mail at: [email protected]