As the Pentagon eyes programs to face the budget axe, weapons programs will be the easiest targets for quick cuts, a budget analyst said Wednesday.
Todd Harrison, a senior fellow at the Center on Strategic Budgetary Assessments, said that acquisitions would likely total to 50 percent of the Pentagon’s cuts under sequestration, even though they only make up about a third of the defense budget.
It comes down to timing, Harrison said.
If the sequestration cuts of up to $600 billion occur, they will be spread out evenly over the next decade. That means that the Pentagon would have to reduce its 2013 budget to roughly $472 billion from the $525 billion that’s currently planned with the initial round of cuts in the August debt-limit deal.
Because the reductions cannot easily be moved around from year to year, Harrison said, finding budget savings through things like reforming veterans benefits, staff attrition or closing down bases would not be as feasible as cutting acquisitions.
“A lot of things you could do to save money in the defense budget take time to implement,” Harrison said. “Instead of making these structural changes, in the short term, the DOD will be forced to make quick cuts, and the quickest way to cut money is in acquisitions/…/ Size matters here,” Harrison said. “If you are going down the list looking to free up billions of dollars, you’re going to start with by looking at the big programs.”