Under current law, the U.S. Department of Defense faces significant spending cuts over the next 10 years—cuts that America’s civilian and military leaders have candidly described as “devastating” and “very high risk.” This precarious state of the Pentagon’s future fiscal affairs is due to the Budget Control Act (BCA), the controversial August 2011 deal by which Congress and the President agreed to raise America’s debt limit. The BCA placed ceilings to cap the defense budget and other forms of discretionary spending. The Obama Administration proposed in its fiscal year (FY) …
America is nearing a decisive moment. Unless Congress acts to change current law, automatic sequestration cuts will slash future spending on national defense across the board by more than $500 billion beginning early next year. Combined with the $487 billion in cuts already put forward by the President in February, America’s military will see its budget drop on average by $100 billion annually over the next decade. As Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta warned lawmakers in a November 2011 letter, sequestration will be “devastating,” yielding “[t]he smallest ground forces since …
Representatives Randy Forbes (R–VA) and Scott Rigell (R–VA) will be hosting a listening session in Chesapeake, Virginia, on Monday, May 14, at 6:30 p.m. at the Chesapeake Conference Center. This event, part of a larger House Armed Services Committee effort spearheaded by Forbes entitled “Defending Our Defenders,” is an initiative aimed to raising awareness about the impact of existing and impending defense cuts to national defense and the U.S. military. This event is the first in a series of at least 12 town halls around the country designed to engage …
On March 22, Representative Paul Ryan (R–WI), chairman of the House Budget Committee, sat down with Heritage’s David Addington, Michael Franc, and Stuart Butler to discuss his budget proposal The Path to Prosperity: Restoring America’s Promise and President Obama’s fiscal year (FY) 2013 budget. Ryan’s assessment of defense spending, in particular, was cogent. He voiced concerns that President Obama’s defense budget was a budget-driven process and wasn’t based upon on our strategic requirements and the threats that we face. He said that after 10 years of war and wear and …
This morning at The Heritage Foundation, Representative Paul Ryan (R–WI), chairman of the House Budget Committee, sat down with Heritage’s David Addington, Michael Franc, and Stuart Butler to discuss his budget proposal The Path to Prosperity: Restoring America’s Promise and President Obama’s fiscal year (FY) 2013 budget. The importance of maintaining a strong national defense while confronting the nation’s spending crisis played a prominent part in Ryan’s remarks. In surveying the state of the U.S. military today and potential threats on the horizon, Ryan said that the President’s defense budget …
The Defending Defense project—a joint initiative of AEI, the Foreign Policy Initiative, and the Heritage Foundation—brought together Senators Jon Kyl (R–AZ), Kelly Ayotte (R–NH), and Lindsey Graham (R–SC) and Representatives Howard P. “Buck” McKeon (R–CA), J. Randy Forbes (R–VA), and Marsha Blackburn (R–TN) on Thursday to discuss the implications of President Obama’s new strategic defense guidance and fiscal year 2013 budget proposal for the Pentagon. Former Senator Jim Talent of The Heritage Foundation moderated the discussion, and Thomas Donnelly of AEI gave closing remarks. Senator Kyl began the event by …
A recent article by the Associated Press leaves the reader with the impression that there haven’t been any defense cuts since the 1990s and that defense spending has not been “on the table” in recent deficit-reduction efforts. Nothing could be further from the truth. The article states that the cuts to defense under the Budget Control Act (BCA) of 2011, beginning in 2013, are “the first outright cuts since the so-called peace dividend of the early 1990s.” In reality, defense budgets have already been cut, are being cut now, and …
President Obama’s new national defense strategy is a budget-driven exercise masquerading as a strategic plan, writes Heritage’s Kim Holmes, former Assistant Secretary of State, in The Washington Times. In trotting out the new strategy, President Obama said the “tide of war is receding.” Accordingly, U.S. forces will “no longer be sized to conduct large-scale, prolonged stability operations” (read: Iraq). But is the tide of war receding on the world stage? And how does he know that the U.S. will not need to engage in another “stability operation”? The Army shed …
In his straightforward and scathing piece for today’s New York Post, Heritage senior fellow Peter Brookes discussed the devastating impact a sequestration of the defense budget would have on America’s military. If the congressional “super committee” cannot find $1.5 trillion in budget savings over the next 10 years by November 23, the law would trigger automatic spending “sequestration” cuts of $1.2 trillion—of which roughly half a trillion or more would be from the defense budget. This spells major trouble for U.S. national security. Since President Obama has been in office, …
Members of Congress, prominent military and veterans affairs experts, and Tea Party representatives raised concerns that further cuts to the U.S. military would do irreparable damage to national security, during an event sponsored by the Coalition for a Common Defense on Capitol Hill. The event took place amidst the growing chorus of Administration officials and experts raising red flags about further cuts to the U.S. military. The chorus is growing because if the congressional “supercommittee” does not reach an agreement on deficit reduction by November 23, there will be huge …
