Obama’s Plan to Save the Military From Cuts—at the Expense of Domestic Programs

[Karmadillo]

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2012/02/19-2

Published on Sunday, February 19, 2012 by The Nation
Obama’s Plan to Save the Military From Cuts—at the Expense of Domestic Programs
by George Zornick

As budget wonks comb over President Obama’s outline for fiscal year 2013, a startling White House plan has become clear: the administration is seeking to undo some mandatory cuts to the Pentagon at the expense of critical domestic programs. It does so by basically undoing the defense sequester that kicked in as a result of the Congressional supercommittee on debt. This wasn’t a featured part of the White House budget rollout, and for good reason—it undercuts the administration’s carefully crafted message of benevolent government action and economic fairness.

The process for this shift is complicated, and has been flagged by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. Essentially, Obama wants to eliminate individual spending caps for both military and non-military spending, and institute one single discretionary spending cap instead. Here’s the basic rundown.

<edit>

The failure of the supercommittee changed all this. When the twelve members failed to reach an agreement in November, the budget laws automatically changed—now, there is no single cap starting in 2014, but dual caps in both defense and non-defense spending through 2021. That’s why hawks like Senators Jon Kyl and John McCain were so upset when the supercommittee failed—with mandatory caps in defense and nondefense spending through 2014, it was a worst-case scenario for defenders of the Pentagon budget.

The Obama budget plan, quite disappointingly, proposes to reverse the configuration of these caps. It would have caps in 2013, split between security and nonsecurity spending—not defense and nondefense—and then beginning in 2014, a single cap is reinstituted anyhow. All the firewalls ensuring that defense spending is reduced would thus be torn down.

more...

[bhikkhu]

1. The article needs more specifics -

aside from the "what Obama wants" slant - to which I apply the usual rule - "when someone tells you what someone else is thinking, they're usually just making crap up".

...aside from that, they do raise a critical point that in 2013 the spending on defense is 5 billion over the cap, and the spending on non-defense is 5 billion under the cap. That's not a good sign - but without specifics as to where exactly those billions are allocated, its hard to make a definite conclusion.

For example - the troops are planned to be out of Afghanistan and the war ended by 2014. 5 billion extra on the budget to fund the withdrawal, writing off equipment or whatever, would be well worthwhile in the medium-term if the goal is made. Where 5 billion would come out of non-defense spending I have no idea, and the article doesn't say either...

ed - sp.

[BzaDem]

2. This article is basically attacking Obama for wanting the supercommittee to not have failed.

Yes, the failure of the supercommittee imposed dual caps on both defense and non-defense, and the success of the supercommittee would not have those distinct caps (after 2014). But we don't want those caps after 2014; the entire point of the trigger was for it to be replaced by something else. Few seriously want the trigger (as enacted) to remain unchanged.

NON-defense spending would be forced to take almost a 10% cut, on top of the cut that already occured in the non-trigger part of the debt deal. That would seriously harm the effectiveness of most programs outside of defense (not including Medicare/Medicaid/SS). The trigger would be a disaster; the question is what to replace it with.

Obama wants to replace the entire trigger (defense and non-defense cuts) with his own plan, which includes over 1.5 trillion dollars of tax increases (primarily on the rich). Yet the article conveniently omits this fact.

[FSogol]

3. Unrec. More pointless Obama bashing. n/t

[GOPonziconz]

4. Bullshit! That's all I have to say about this right wing bullshit!

[madrchsod]

5. it`s an election year...

if we do our job and take back the house and hold the senate obama can do just about anything he wants.

[RBInMaine]

6. Enough of this stupid insane Obama-bashing bullshit. Just enough already.