Obama’s Sequestration

Posted September 15, 2012

Obama’s Sequestration Makes Devastating Cuts To Defense As A Result Of His Failure To Lead

'This is the Republican view of the Sequestration' 

OBAMA HAS OUTLINED DANGEROUS CUTS TO DEFENSE AND NATIONAL SECURITY

Obama Outlined $109 Billion Worth Of Cuts Set To Take Effect In FY2013 . “The White House Office of Management and Budget said in the report to Congress today that it would have to chop $109 billion from government programs in fiscal 2013, split evenly with $54.7 billion coming from defense and $54.7 billion from programs outside defense, including an $11 billion reduction, or 2 percent, from Medicare.” (Roger Runnigen, “Obama Sequestration Report Warns Of ‘Devastating Impact’ Of Cuts,” Bloomberg, 9/14/12)

Obama’s Sequestration Report “Simply Lists The Dollar Amount Of The Cuts But Fails To Address Their Real-World Impact.” “The 394-page report, however, simply lists the dollar amount of the cuts but fails to address their real-world impact. For instance, it would cut the number of food inspectors and air traffic controllers on the job. But when asked on a conference call, a top White House official wouldn’t say whether such cuts would require closing meatpacking plants or shutting down smaller airports.” (Andrew Taylor, “Administration Warns Of ‘Destructive’ Budget Cuts,” The Associated Press, 9/14/12)

Dangerous Cuts To Defense Spending And Veterans Care Are Mandated By Obama’s Sequester

“Total Defense Function Spending Must Be Reduced By $54.667 Billion.” (“OMB Report Pursuant To The Sequestration Transparency Act Of 2012,” Office Of Management And Budget, p.6, 9/14/12)

• Obama’s Sequestration Would Cut Defense Programs By 9.4 Percent And A Number Of Pentagon Accounts By 10 Percent. “The overview: There would be a 9.4 percent cut to most defense programs – except those exempted in the sequestration law – and a 10 percent cut to a handful of other Pentagon accounts that are not subject to annual congressional appropriations.” (Austin Wright And Jonathan Allen, “White House Releases Sequester Details,” Politico, 9/14/12)

• The White House Sequestration Report Claims That “Sequestration Would Result In A Reduction In Readiness Of Many Non-Deployed Units.” “While the Department of Defense would be able to shift funds to ensure war fighting and critical military readiness capabilities were not degraded, sequestration would result in a reduction in readiness of many non-deployed units, delays in investments in new equipment and facilities, cutbacks in equipment repairs, declines in military research and development efforts, and reductions in base services for military families.” (“OMB Report Pursuant To The Sequestration Transparency Act Of 2012,” Office Of Management And Budget, p. 1, 9/14/12)

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta Says Cuts To Defense Will Result In The “Smallest Ground Force Since 1940, The Smallest Number Of Ships Since 1915 And The Smallest Air Force In Its History.” “Defense Secretary Leon Panetta spelled out a doomsday scenario Monday that he said could occur if Congress fails to take action to avoid a $1 trillion cut in defense spending over the next decade. Panetta, responding to a letter from Republican Senators John McCain and Lindsay Graham, said cuts of nearly $100 billion a year would leave the United States with its smallest ground force since 1940, the smallest number of ships since 1915 and the smallest air force in its history.” (David Alexander, “Panetta Spells Out Budget Cut Doomsday Fears,” Reuters, 11/14/11)

• “‘The Impacts Of These Cuts Would Be Devastating For The Department,’ Panetta Wrote Monday In His Letter, Which Was Released By The Senators.” (David Alexander, “Panetta Spells Out Budget Cut Doomsday Fears,” Reuters, 11/14/11)

• If Sequestration Takes Effect, The Navy’s Current Fleet Of 285 Ships Would Be Reduced To 235 Ships. “Ayotte later told New Hampshire reporters that Navy officials say if the cuts take place, the current fleet of 285 ships must be reduced to 235 over the next 10 years, which, she said, would be the smallest U.S. Navy since 1915. She said the Navy believes 313 ships are needed to adequately fulfill defense needs.” (John DiStaso, “Ayotte Warns: Defense Cuts Potentially ‘Devastating’ For Shipyard, Contractors,” New Hampshire Union Leader, 3/29/12)

• The Reduction Would Include Submarines, Of Which The Portsmouth Naval Shipyard Is Responsible For Maintenance On. “The reduction would include submarines, and Ayotte noted that the shipyard is responsible for maintenance of attack submarines.” (John DiStaso, “Ayotte Warns: Defense Cuts Potentially ‘Devastating’ For Shipyard, Contractors,” New Hampshire Union Leader, 3/29/12)

Defense Programs Will Be Cut At A Higher Rate Than Domestic Programs . “The overview: There would be a 9.4 percent cut to most defense programs – except those exempted in the sequestration law – and a 10 percent cut to a handful of other Pentagon accounts that are not subject to annual congressional appropriations. Medicare would get hit with a 2 percent cut, while domestic discretionary programs – such as scientific grants and Education Department programs – would be subject to 8.2 percent cuts. Most mandatory domestic programs – those that are funded based on eligibility – would be slashed by 7.6 percent.” (Austin Wright and Jonathan Allen, “White House Releases Sequester Details,” Politico, 9/14/12)

• Obama’s Sequestration Would Cut $5 Million From The Armed Forces Retirement Home. (“OMB Report Pursuant To The Sequestration Transparency Act Of 2012,” Office Of Management And Budget, p. 169, 9/14/12)

• Obama’s Sequestration Would Cut $4 Million From Veterans Employment And Training. (“OMB Report Pursuant To The Sequestration Transparency Act Of 2012,” Office Of Management And Budget, 9/14/12)

• Obama’s Sequestration Would Cut $6.867 Billion From The Defense Department’s Operation And Maintenance , Army. (“OMB Report Pursuant To The Sequestration Transparency Act Of 2012,” Office Of Management And Budget, pp. 42, 9/14/12)

• Obama’s Sequestration Would Cut $296 Million From The Defense Department’s Joint Improvised Explosive Device Defeat Fund. (“OMB Report Pursuant To The Sequestration Transparency Act Of 2012,” Office Of Management And Budget, pp. 48, 9/14/12)

• Obama’s Sequestration Would Cut $2.010 Billion From The Defense Department’s Aircraft Procurement, Air Force. (“OMB Report Pursuant To The Sequestration Transparency Act Of 2012,” Office Of Management And Budget, pp. 48, 9/14/12)

• Obama’s Sequestration Would Cut $1.325 Billion From The Defense Department’s Afghanistan Security Forces Fund. (“OMB Report Pursuant To The Sequestration Transparency Act Of 2012,” Office Of Management And Budget, pp. 43, 9/14/12)

• Obama’s Sequestration Would Cut $4.27 Billion From The Defense Department’s Operations And Maintenance, Air Force. (“OMB Report Pursuant To The Sequestration Transparency Act Of 2012,” Office Of Management And Budget, pp. 43, 9/14/12)

• Obama’s Sequestration Would Cut $3.879 Billion From The Defense Department’s Operation s And Maintenance, Defense-Wide. (“OMB Report Pursuant To The Sequestration Transparency Act Of 2012,” Office Of Management And Budget, pp. 40, 9/14/12)

• Obama’s Sequestration Would Cut $3.269 Billion From The Defense Depar tment’s Defense Health Program. (“OMB Report Pursuant To The Sequestration Transparency Act Of 2012,” Office Of Management And Budget, pp. 41, 9/14/12)

• Obama’s Sequestration Would Cut $4.291 Billion From The Defense Department’s Op erations And Maintenance, Navy. (“OMB Report Pursuant To The Sequestration Transparency Act Of 2012,” Office Of Management And Budget, pp. 42, 9/14/12)

• Obama’s Sequestration Would Cut $2.141 Billion From The Defense Department’s Shipbuilding And Conversion, Navy. (“OMB Report Pursuant To The Sequestration Transparency Act Of 2012,” Office Of Management And Budget, pp. 46, 9/14/12)

As Embassies Overseas Are Being Attacked, Obama Announced Sequestration Would Cut Millions For Embassy Security

Obama’s Sequestration Would Cut $1.084 Billion From The State Department’s Diplomatic And Consular Program, Including $2 Million For The Protection Of Foreign Missions And Officials, And $129 Million For Embassy Security, Construction, And Maintenance. (“OMB Report Pursuant To The Sequestration Transparency Act Of 2012,” Office Of Management And Budget, pp. 135-136, 9/14/12)

OBAMA PUT SEQUESTRATION IN THE DEBT CEILING DEAL, THEN STOOD ON THE SIDELINES AND LET THE SUPER COMMITTEE FAIL, TRIGGERING THE CUTS

The Idea For Including A Trigger In The Debt Ceiling Deal Which Included Defense Cuts Originated From The White House. “Lew, Nabors, Sperling and Bruce Reed, Biden’s chief of staff, had finally decided to propose using language from the 1985 Gramm-Rudman-Hollings deficit reduction law as the model for the trigger. It seemed tough enough to apply to the current situation. It would require a sequester with half the cuts from defense, and the other half from domestic programs. There would be no chance the Republicans would want to pull the trigger and allow the sequester to force massive cuts to Defense.” (Bob Woodward, The Price Of Politics, 2012, p. 339)

• The White House Was Pushing For Defense Cuts So That They Could Sell Their Plan To The “Rank And File.” “Boehner seemed to agree. Simply put, the White House and the Democrats were going to be able to sell a deal to their rank and file because of Defense cuts.” (Bob Woodward, The Price Of Politics, 2012, p. 204)

• White House: “We Have An Idea For The Trigger. … Sequestration.” “At 2:30 p.m. Lew and Nabors went to the Senate to meet with Reid and his chief of staff, David Krone. ‘We have an idea for the trigger,’ Lew said. ‘What’s the idea?’ Reid asked skeptically. ‘Sequestration.’ Reid bent down and put his head between his knees, almost as if he were going to throw up or was having a heart attack. He sat back up and looked at the ceiling. ‘A couple of weeks ago,’ he said, ‘my staff said to me that there is one more possible’ enforcement mechanism: sequestration. He said he told them, ‘Get the hell out of here. That’s insane. The White House surely will come up with a plan that will save the day. And you come to me with sequestration?’ Well, it could work, Lew and Nabors explained. What would the impact be? They would design it so that half the threatened cuts would be from the Defense Department. ‘I like that,’ Reid said. ‘That’s good. It doesn’t touch Medicaid or Medicare, does it?’ It actually does touch Medicare, they replied. ‘How does it touch Medicare?’ It depends, they said. There’s versions with 2 percent cuts, and there’s versions with 4 percent cuts.” (Bob Woodward, The Price Of Politics, 2012, pp. 326)

Biden Admitted That Cutting Defense Spending, Particularly Veterans Programs, Was Politically Dangerous But Said, “We Should Look At It.” “On the national side, including Defense, the State Department, Homeland Security and Veterans Affairs, Lew said, ‘We are beginning a strategic review – a fast strategic review is being initiated. But it’s possible to talk about the numbers without Defense being on the table.’ ‘Veterans Affairs,’ Biden interrupted in some wonderment. The military was sacred, and it could be political suicide for Democrats to consider cuts for vets. ‘This is a dangerous area,’ he acknowledged, ‘but we should look at it.’” (Bob Woodward, The Price Of Politics, 2012, p. 115)

Obama “Sat Happily On The End Of The Bench” And Let The Super Committee Fail

“President Barack Obama Prides Himself On Being A Clutch Player, But He Sat Happily On The End Of The Bench As The Clock Ran Out On The Supercommittee.” (Carrie Budoff Brown and Glenn Thrush, “Obama’s Rules Of Disengagement,” Politico, 11/22/11)

• Rather Than Working With The Super Committee, Obama Believed The Greater Political Benefit Came From Campaigning For A Second Stimulus. “And with the economic recovery at risk and Democrats pressing for help, Mr. Obama sees greater economic and political benefit in emphasizing his $447 billion job-creation plan rather than longer-range deficit reduction. And that is precisely what he has been doing all over the country since September, after giving the committee his own proposals for $3 trillion in tax increases and spending cuts to reduce projected deficits over 10 years.” (Jackie Calmes, “Panel Is At Impasse, But Obama Sees No Reason To Step In,” The New York Times , 11/9/11)

• The White House Made An Early Decision To Keep Its Distance From The Super Committee. “For administration officials, the prospect of the committee’s failure reinforces the decision early on for President Obama to keep his distance, focus on his jobs plan and avoid the sort of prolonged debt-limit fight with Republicans that dragged down his approval ratings last summer.” (Jackie Calmes, “Panel Is At Impasse, But Obama Sees No Reason To Step In,” The New York Times , 11/9/11)

NBC’s David Gregory Asked “If [Obama Is] So Committed To Bringing Down The Nation’s Debt, Why Is He Not In There Driving Toward A Solution?” DAVID GREGORY: “If he’s so committed to bringing down the nation’s debt, why is he not in there driving toward a solution? My own reporting tells me, from people involved in those talks, that the White House has had much more of a hands-off approach to dealing with what the Super Committee will agree to on reducing the debt.” (NBC’s “Meet The Press,” 11/13/11)

Boehner Abandons Grand Bargain, Can't Sway Caucus on Taxes(Remember the Republicans walked out, they would not raise revenues)

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  Jonathan Cohn

• July 10, 2011 | 1:14 pm
• 22 comments
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Does anything matter to Republicans more than protecting tax cuts for the very wealthy? Developments of the last 18 hours suggest very strongly that the answer is no.

As you have probably heard by now, House Speaker John Boehner on Saturday evening informed President Obama that he was no longer interested in pursuing a “grand bargain” on deficit reduction. It was a major turning point in the debate. For the past week, Obama has made clear that he hoped to use ongoing negotiations over the debt ceiling to put in place a massive, potentially historic deal to reorder the nation’s spending priorities – a deal that would reduce deficits by as much as $4 trillion cumulatively over the next decade. 

Boehner indicated that he shared that goal. And the deal, if completed, was likely to reflect Republican priorities far more than Democratic ones. Although Obama has insisted he wants a “balanced” approach to reducing the deficit, the deal was likely to involve far more in spending reductions than in new revenue.

To achieve this deal, Democrats had indicated a significant and serious willingness to sacrifice their own goals and their own constituencies. Reductions in Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security were all on the table – not to mention reductions in discretionary spending that would have seriously weakened, if not crippled, government programs on which poor people, in particular, depend. President Obama had made it clear he was willing to accept such cuts, if it meant putting together a far-reaching package. More liberal Democrats were more skeptical, but rhetoric from House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, among others, made it clear they were willing to entertain most of these ideas, depending on their structure and what Republicans were offering in return. 

But that last part proved to be the problem. Such a large deal would have required Republicans to agree to new revenue, in some form. And at least some of that money would have come from higher taxes (in terms of total collections, if not rates) on the very wealthy. Boehner hinted that might be acceptable, as part of a compromise. New York Times columnist David Brooks urged Republicans to go along, calling the still-lopsided proposal "the deal of the century." 

But other Republican leaders, like Majority Leader Eric Cantor, and certain conservative agitators, like the writers of the Wall Street Journal editorial page, made very clear they disagreed. No matter how big the Democratic concessions, no matter how risky the prospect of postponing a deal on the debt ceiling, they were not willing to embrace a package that meant higher taxes, particularly taxes on the wealthy. And according to reports in this morning’s papers, those voices finally prevailed.

Here’s Politico’s account, by David Rogers and Jake Sherman: 

Tax policy disputes were at the center of the collapse, including differences with the White House over President Barack Obama’s demand that future tax reforms must maintain or increase the progressivity of the tax code. But for days Boehner has been under relentless pressure from conservatives to step away from the deal, which Saturday’s Wall Street Journal editorial writers dubbed “Boehner’s Obama Gamble.”

Boehner had effectively agreed to decouple the high-end tax rates of the Bush era from the middle and lower income rates favored by Democrats. But before anything changed in 2013, he was promised enactment of broad reform — covering personal and corporate taxes — with the goal of lowering rates by establishing a more efficient code. …

Nonetheless, it was a tall order given the assumption that the deal would also yield close to $1 trillion in new revenues over 10 years. Ending oil and gas tax breaks, as well as the favorable “carried interest” capital gains rates used to shelter investor income, would be part of the picture. But reform also would have to contribute its share of new revenues.

That passage in italics (mine) is really important. Assuming the account is correct — and David Rogers usually knows what he's talking about — the deal would have extended Bush tax cuts that apply to lower and middle incomes. But the deal wouldn't have extended the tax cuts that apply to higher incomes, at least right away. And that was more than the Republicans were willing to contemplate. 

In case there's any doubt about the GOP's priorities, here’s the Washington Post’s account, written by Lori Montgomery and Paul Kane: 

The sweeping deal Obama and Boehner had been discussing would have required both parties to take a bold leap into the political abyss. Democrats were demanding more than $800 billion in new tax revenue, causing heartburn among the hard-line fiscal conservatives who dominate the House Republican caucus. Republicans, meanwhile, were demanding sharp cuts to Medicare and Social Security, popular safety net programs that congressional Democrats have vowed to protect.

Obama, at least, was willing to make that leap and had put significant reductions to entitlement programs on the table. But on Saturday, Boehner blinked: Republican aides said he could not, in the end, reach agreement with the White House on a strategy to permit the Bush-era tax cuts for the nation’s wealthiest households to expire next year, as lawmakers undertook a thorough rewrite of the tax code.

I can't say I'm entirely disappointed to see the prospects of the grand bargain diminish. (I say "diminish" because Obama apparently hasn't given up.) The likely terms of the deal seemed way too skewed in the conservative direction for my taste.

For what it's worth, I’ve actually gained some respect for Boehner. Based on the reports and what I've heard from people close to the negotiations, Boehner was genuinely interested in negotiating a deal even if that meant agreeing to some compromises, albeit pretty modest ones from my perspective. 

But as the skeptics, like my colleague Jonathan Chait, were predicting all along, Boehner isn't really in charge of the House Republican caucus. The lunatics are. And it looks like they've won
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