The defense budget has always been collateral damage in the great budget debate over the relative merits of entitlement reform and tax increases. The current deficit is projected to total some $642 billion in 2013. The combination of cuts to the defense budget mandated by the fiscal year 2011 Budget Control Act (BCA) and those imposed by the sequester amount to less than $85 billion, that is, they account for no more than a 14 percent reduction of the 2013 deficit. Clearly, defense does not provide a solution to the annual deficit, much less to the seemingly endless growth in the national debt. That solution can only be reached when the Congress resolves the taxes-versus-entitlements debate.
In the meantime, cutting defense by $85 billion has had a severe impact on our military’s readiness, operations, and modernization program. And should sequestration continue into fiscal year 2014, as by all indications it will, its impact will be even more devastating, since the defense budget that the administration submitted to the Congress earlier this year would have to be reduced by $52 billion in addition to the $47 billion in BCA-driven reductions that the budget incorporates. Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel and Deputy Secretary Ash Carter have made it clear that the only way the sequester can be honored is by implementing further severe cuts in readiness, in addition to some combination of radical reductions in force levels and cancellation of modernization programs.
