Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Norton Schwartz warned this week that Congress must add funding to the Air Force's budget if it wants to preserve the number of guardsmen the service plans to cut. Otherwise, Congress will hollow out his service.
Lawmakers in the House and Senate have pushed back against the Air Force's budget proposal, which outlines the reduction of 5,100 guardsmen and 3,900 active duty airmen. Service leaders have also received criticism from state leaders for transferring aircraft in the Air National Guard to active duty squadrons.
"If you give us force structure back, give us the money too because the quickest way I know to a hollow force is if you give us force structure and no money," Schwartz said Tuesday. "To just indicate that [the Air Force] keep it and make it work is not a satisfactory solution in my mind."
The Council of Governors, a group of 10 governors formed in 2010 to improve responses to national disasters, has grabbed the Pentagon's attention with a high profile lobbying effort demanding the Air Force step back from the cuts to the Guard.
Defense Secretary Leon Panetta offered a compromise on April 23, when he sent a letter to Congress saying the Pentagon would add $400 million to the Air Force's budget to restore 24 aircraft and cut only 2,917 guardsmen.
The Council of Governors rejected the compromise April 27. Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad and Washington Gov. Christine Gregoire, council co-chairs, sent a letter to Panetta saying the Pentagon's offer "falls short of addressing governors' concerns."
The council will lobby Congress to sustain the funding, manpower and aircraft levels that it did in 2012 for the Air National Guard again in 2013, Branstad and Gregoire wrote/.../
A common critique the Air Force has faced is a lack of analysis presented to Congress in support of its budget proposal. Lawmakers want to see the cost assessments that justify cutting the Guard, which provides about 35 percent of service capabilities for about 6 percent of the Air Force's overall budget.
"The Air Force has little choice but to be forthright and transparent about their decision making," said Todd Harrison, a defense analyst with the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments. "Just saying ‘trust me' isn't going to work in this budget environment. They have to produce the analysis that led to their decisions, and that analysis has to stand up to daylight of public scrutiny."
Harrison said he couldn't remember a time when a service has had to battle state leaders on its overall budget/.../