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In the background, Army Chief of Staff Gen. Raymond Odierno (r) chats with Sen. Mark Udall, D-Colo. In the foreground, Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Jonathan Greenert (l) chats with Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Mark Welsh. Evidence is mounting, that on sequestration, the Pentagon largely is preaching to an ever-smaller choir. (SAUL LOEB/AFP via Getty Images)
The Pentagon is slated to take an bigger sequestration cut in the second year of the across-the-board cuts than it did during the first.
The Joint Chiefs of Staff and civilian defense leaders continue issuing dire warnings about how the sequester cuts are hurting the military’s ability to be ready for a list of missions and purchase new weapons for future conflicts. But it is increasingly clear the gloom-and-doom from E-Ring inhabitants just isn’t resonating on Capitol Hill.
A Pentagon spokesman told Defense News’ Paul McLeary on Monday that the Defense Department faces a $52 billion sequester cut for fiscal 2014 unless Congress acts before Jan. 15.
House Budget Committee Ranking Member Chris Van Hollen repeated that figure Monday during a television interview. But he cast that figure as fair, suggesting DoD got special treatment last year.
“Defense actually was somewhat cushioned from sequester last year,” said Van Hollen. “So it’s not that defense was treated worse last year. It’s that they’re being treated the same as non-defense.”
Van Hollen went on to say Congress should replace all of sequestration with other deficit-cutting measures. Still, his remarks are in stark contrast to House and Senate defense hawks, who say one more penny cut from the Pentagon budget is a cut too deep.
It’s also yet another sign about how various factions in Congress remain miles apart on how to trim the massive federal deficit.
But, as Defense News has reported for months, the view of Van Hollen — who hails from defense-sector haven Maryland — is shared by many in both parties.
So, perhaps more than anything else, his comment is the latest piece of evidence suggesting the chiefs’ apocalyptic rhetoric has failed to change many minds on the Hill.
