The fate of the republic — if we are to believe the hype — soon will be in the hands of the 12-member Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction that must find $1.5 trillion in spending cuts. For the Pentagon, the most dreaded outcome is deadlock. If the panel fails to agree to a comprehensive plan of spending cuts and revenues that reduces the national debt by $1.2 trillion, there will be across-the-board budget reductions, and half would come from defense. These automatic “sequester” cuts would be implemented beginning in 2013/…/
Analyst Todd Harrison of the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments says the trigger provision would inevitably bring down the 2013 base defense budget to approximately $472 billion, compared to the administration’s earlier projections of $571 billion. Adjusting for inflation, funding would hold near that level for the following eight years.
“DoD should immediately begin contingency planning for how to handle such a reduction,” says Harrison.