President Barack Obama’s slowdown in Pentagon spending after the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, denounced by Republicans as crippling the nation’s defense, is overshadowed by the retrenchment under previous presidents following the Vietnam and Cold War eras/.../
“While members of Congress may try to highlight the differences, they’re pretty close to what the president requested,” with only a 1 percent difference between the lawmakers’ and president’s versions, Todd Harrison, a defense budget analyst at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, said in an e-mail.
None of the debate over how much to add or take away from the 2013 budget “really matters” until lawmakers “figure out what, if anything, they’re going to do about sequestration,” which can result in a 10 percent across-the-board cut in defense spending, Harrison said.