The Senate’s spending committee today reduced by $26 billion the pending fiscal 2012 defense budget -- the first installment of as much as $400 billion in cuts the Pentagon faces through 2024. The Senate Appropriations Committee applied the reduction to a fiscal 2012 base defense budget of $539 billion that’s controlled by its defense panel.
Not only is the cut in line with the debt reduction act, “it is also the first time Congress has had to say how they plan to implement the cuts required,” said Todd Harrison, a defense budget analyst with the non-partisan Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments. “It’s one thing to set a budget cap,” Harrison said. “It is much more difficult to actually identify the specific savings.”