House GOP blames DOD on sequester

Tension among Republicans on the House Armed Services Committee boiled over on Wednesday, as panel members blamed Pentagon leaders for playing a role in the looming fiscal crisis facing the Defense Department under sequestration.

During Wednesday's hearing, committee Republican Reps. Randy Forbes (Va.) and Rob Bishop (Utah) slammed DOD for its refusal to plan for the massive, across-the-board cuts tied to the White House's sequestration plan.

Deputy Defense Secretary Ash Carter, Pentagon Comptroller Bob Hale, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Martin Dempsey and the heads of the service branches appeared before the panel, to again plead their case against the automatic budget cuts.

Under the plan, Pentagon coffers are expected to be hit with nearly $500 billion in spending reductions over the next decade.

Forbes asked point-blank whether DOD's decision to not take sequestration into account during its budget planning process was a mistake.

"There's been 560 days since [sequestration] was signed into law as the law of the land ... [and] just within the last couple of weeks, [is] when we've received the memos from you guys about the impacts that this was going to have," Forbes said.

In September, DOD officials told The Hill that they had not taken sequestration into account when planning for the department's budget proposal for fiscal year 2013, and President Obama has long said that the cuts — which were set in motion by the debt-ceiling deal last year — should not happen.

The ticks me off. The House knows that their own Committee members told the DoD that the Sequester would not happen, all the way until January when the House agreed to the tax hikes but left the Sequestration cuts of $600 Billion in place for the Pentagon to swallow.

Moreover, the House members know that if you start taking action on the cuts, the politicians take it as a signal that you can "live" with them. It is a Washington game. The fact of the matter is the House knew the DoD could not "live" with cuts this deep without a real reduction in operations and readiness. Morever, becasue of the Continuing Resolution the DoD is operating with less budget authority. When you add in the $487 Billion cuts that Obama started in 2011 (that were real cuts and took their toll), the Defense Dept is reeling.

Obama did tell the defense contractors to not issue layoffs in accordance with the WARN Act before the election, but that is Lockheed's and other contractor's fault, not DoD. Take that up with Obama and his lawyers.

During the same hearing, Bishop made crystal clear that the department's inaction to plan for sequestration made it more difficult for congressional lawmakers to come up with a viable solution.

"You are part of the problem ... you helped cause this," Bishop angrily told the DOD and military witnesses.

"You had to realize there had to be some lead time" to adequately prepare for the heavy financial impact to the department via sequestration, the Utah Republican said, adding the "silence" from DOD regarding sequestration planning only added confusion to an already difficult situation.

"You bear some of this responsibility, [and] there is a lot of blame to go around," Bishop said.

What a jerk Bishop acted like! He is trying to deflect blame for the fact that Congress refused to deal with the Sequester during the Fiscal Cliff talks. All they cared about were the tax hikes. Period.

Carter fired back at those accusations, telling Bishop and Forbes the Pentagon has been sounding the alarm on the devastating impacts of sequester ever since the law went on the books in 2011.

"We have been describing the consequences of sequester for a very long time. We've been anticipating them. They're not hard to see," Carter said. "Planning isn't the problem [it's] never been the problem. The problem was doing something."

Carter explained that DOD and the White House were reluctant to begin taking action on sequester, fearing that effort would remove the impetus for Congress to come up with a plan to avoid it.

Incredible. Obama appointees make more sense than a GOP Congressman.

With moron aholes like this, it’s no wonder Boehner was re- elected as weeper of the house.

Agreed.

Love the J.C. Penny suit. I hope it came with a free adjustable belt.

You know what is amazing? Ashton Carter, the Deputy Defense Secretary he sparred with (who is a Democrat) is no dummy (Harvard, Oxford, Stanford). He agreed to take a 20% paycut himself because Sequestration will require all DoD civilian employees to be furloughed.

As a political appointee, he is exempt, but is going to voluntarily take the paycut anyway if Sequestration happens.

Call me crazy, but I admire that.

Most DoD civilians are not making 6 figures or even high 5 figures. Over 85% don't even work in DC. Almost half of them are veterans themselves. Many of them are like this guy:

A majority of Air Force maintenance is now civilianized. What are these guys going to do when they get a 20% paycut? I am sure their mortgage lenders will understand.

I'd like to see Obama's White House staffers, Michelle's 25 paid slaves, and every member of Congress and their staff make the same pledge.

Will.

Never.

Happen.

But would be nice to see them asked the question, and watch them squirm.

Sorry for your outrage, but Bishop is absolutely right. If the DOD had actually worked their budget to the law of the land, not only would there be less impact, but it would have been clear before the election what was going to happen, when people could still cast a different vote.

Instead, they just believed that Obama would break the sequestration law, like he breaks so many other laws.

And the truth is, the sequestration cuts aren’t the devastating thing they claim. Or they wouldn’t, if they had started cost-cutting months ago. They don’t even have a real budget yet, just a continuing resolution, and yet they plan to spend as if they had been authorized a big increase.

You do, of course, realize that such tricks as we are seeing here are old, well worn bureaucratic ploys. Any time a “cut” is made in Government, the bureaucrats whose satrapies are threatened from growth by these slight reductions in the planned excess do all that they can to maximize the public wailing about any perceived “pain” by threatening various items with closure, or persons with termination. “Our hands are tied” they wail. “The Eevil Rethuglicans in Congress made us do it,” they intone. “We have no choice,” they beg.

This is all horse dung.

Remember who we are dealing with, and also remember who framed the story and who presented it. Rats always lie.

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