Lawmakers could wait to void automatic Pentagon cuts that a debt-panel failure would trigger until well after the 2012 election, meaning the final 2013 military spending bill would be passed months late, says a plugged-in defense think tank.
“Enforcement of sequestration — when funding is actually taken out of accounts — does not begin until January 2013,” the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments said in a new report. “This gives Congress a full year to modify, delay, or nullify sequestration.”
Some prominent Republicans, like Senate Armed Services Committee Ranking Member John McCain (Ariz.), have floated the notion of voiding the $600 billion in additional Pentagon cuts that would be set off if the debt panel fails to fashion a plan for $1.2 trillion in federal cuts that both chambers can approve.
“Given that 2012 is a Presidential election year, it is conceivable that should sequestration be triggered Congressional action to alter sequestration may not happen until after the November 2012 election,” CSBA concludes. “A lame-duck session of Congress could delay enforcement of sequestration several months into 2013 to give the next Congress time to develop an alternative. As a result, the 2013 level of funding for defense may not be known until well into the fiscal year [which begins Oct. 1].”