Sequestration–the process of automatically cutting more than $500 billion from defense spending over the next decade–was momentarily delayed by a last-minute deal between Congress and the White House reached just before it was due to take effect on January 2. But the delay isn’t long–unless a new deal is reached, sequestration will hit on March 2. And odds are no deal will be reached. As Paul Ryan noted on TV this weekend, sequestration is likely to go into effect. This is because the price that the White House is demanding to prevent it–which would include further cuts in defense spending along with tax hikes–is too high for Republicans to stomach.
We don’t know exactly how this process is going to play out, but the Navy has released an instructive memo detailing the very real damage that sequestration will do to our defense capabilities. As summarized by Defense News, the consequences of sequestration include:
A drastic cutback in the number of strike group deployments. Aircraft flying hours in the Middle East cut by more than half. Naval operations stopped around Latin America and reduced in the Pacific. Four of the fleet’s nine air wings shut down starting in March. Two carrier strike group deployments “extended indefinitely.” Only partial training for two more strike groups.
Similar consequences will be felt by the other services. As the Marine Corps Times notes, “The Marine Corps is bracing for sudden and severe budget cuts that could throttle programs and services at installations across the globe if Congress and the Obama administration fail to act by March 1.”
Also affected will be the Defense Department’s 800,000 civilian employees. Deputy Defense Secretary Ash Carter told reporters “that if Congress does not come up with a way to avoid mandatory budget cuts by March 1, hundreds of thousands of Pentagon civilian employees will face furloughs and reduced paychecks by April.”
Some of these parlous consequences could be stopped and even rolled back should Congress reach a deal on sequestration after it goes into effect. But given the partisan gridlock on the Hill, there is a very real chance that these cutbacks will not be reversed. If so, the damage to our armed forces will be serious at a time when they confront more threats than ever before–including the Iranian nuclear program, Chinese cyberattacks, Islamist gains in Mali and other countries in Africa and the Middle East, and the instability emanating from the Syrian civil war.
How anyone thinks we can chop defense spending at a time likes this is beyond me; but that is where Washington is heading. The result is likely to be, heaven help us, another “hollow” military like the one in the post-Vietnam years in the 1970s.
time to hit the DC metro housing market hard so that they know what the rest of us go through. n nyou want leviathan military? Restore all the lost taxes from the irresponsible tax cuts 2001-2012. nIn other words, blame Bush/Cheney as much as you blame everyone today, without the hysteria.
"How anyone thinks we can chop defense spending at a time likes this is beyond me…." n nHow anyone thinks we can afford tax cuts for the wealthy while maintaining a military that is larger than the militaries of all other nations combined is beyond me.
Actually, we could quite easily do that, but it would require scaling back the massive give aways and transfer payments and entitlements that suck the country dry.
Well if either side stopped jerking around and began to consolidate government programs and bureaucracies, cut spending, and revamp necessary programs like Social Security we could do all that and more. n nThere isn't enough money to tax to run the government as it stands.
HillelA, to save time, why not just post a number for your comment? Just a few choices would cover everything you have to say: n1. Obama is right, by definition. n2. ___________________ [Insert name of Hilllary or other Obama appointee] can do no wrong. n3. Obama or his appointee is being falsely smeared. n4. Anyone who disagrees with HillelA is by definition dumb. n5. Israel is in no danger but Likudniks are exaggerating the situation in order to consolidate the personal power of the dumb and evil Bibi. n6. Iran and North Korea are no threat. n7. The US has no enemies abroad. n8. It's not really anti-Semitism unless they are shoveling people into gas ovens, but the neo-cons for political advantage shamelessly call anti-Semitism where there is none. n9. The only danger facing the US is the monolithic evil neo-con NRA conservative tea-partiers. n nThink of all the time it would save you if you had just posted "#1, 4, 7, 9" instead of using words.
Well, far be it from this old pooch to give up the rallying cry that Obama is ideologically inclined to hollow out our mliitary, but part of this is the Pentagon equivalent of city mayors who protest that if municipal budgets are cut "we'll have to shut down the city museums and lay off half our firemen and policeman"–maybe, but…there is a lot of tail to the fighting point of the spear, wasteful spending etc.
sounds like "sequestration" is just another word for "Chuck Hagel's philosophy of defense spending."
Hey Max you can always join up,and bring some of your family with you. Since you have never nHave served and while your at it perhaps you can convince the fighting Kagans to join with you. nOur military can always benefit from your battlefield expertise. n
Because only armed forces members and veterans have the right to express an opinion on national defense and foreign policy, right, Stan? n nThat was a dumb and vile argument when the supporters of Spiro Agnew and George Wallace used it, and it's no less dumb or vile now.
Hollowed out, weak military is just what President Bath House Barry wants.
Most of us show know by now that the Left despises the Military.
they found an unpublished novel of Dalton Trumbo's:, a sequel to "Johnny Get Your Gun' nit's entitled n"Judy Get Your gun " nor n "When Joanie Comes (not) Marching Home: a Quadruple Amputee's Tale"