Posted on 02/13/2013 4:32:12 PM PST by SkyPilot
House appropriators are finalizing a stopgap spending bill to prevent a government shutdown after March 27, and the bill could see a vote before the end of February.
House Appropriations Chairman Hal Rogers (R-Ky.) said Thursday that he is crafting a continuing resolution at the current level of spending, thereby separating the issue of a government shutdown from the question of how to deal with automatic sequestration cuts.
The stopgap spending bill would be set at the current level of $1.043 trillion for the entire fiscal year that began Oct. 1. It would specify that the $85 billion sequestration is allowed to take place unless it is separately turned off.
The bill would contain full-year appropriations bills for the Defense department, and also cover military construction and veterans' affairs spending.
By going from a stopgap bill for these areas to a detailed appropriations bill, Rogers hopes to help the Pentagon cope better with the effects of sequestration. The CR alone was slated to cause an $11 billion shortfall for the Pentagon's operations and maintenance account and the Rogers plan would allow the Pentagon to work around that limitation.
Impacts were projected to affect matters from Joint Strike Fighter procurement to the building of medical facilities to treat wounded soldiers.
(Excerpt) Read more at thehill.com ...
“So, 26% of the DoD budget is off limits. The 19% that procurement takes looks like a player, but it isn’t.”
The law requires procurement accounts to take the same percentage cut as the O&S accounts. The reason the procurement accounts are not as impacted is procurement funds are three year money O&S is one year money. This means the procurement accounts can take the cuts out of 11, 12, or 13 funds. O&S has to take it out of 13 funds.
“Many of those contracts are already signed. We get into legal territory now. Some of them could possibly be broken through a pause in orders, modifications, or partial terminations. But in the end, the lawyers always win. The DoD may end up owing more, so they are holding off with doing that....for now.”
Not really. DoD is under a Continuing Resolution Authority funded at 50% of 2012. The procurement accounts have only received 50% of their funds so many of these contracts have not been ‘signed’. That doesn’t help the O&S accounts because you can’t use procurement funds for operations and maintenance. The procurement accounts can also defer further contracts to preserve funds to pay for their personnel, etc.
“They can furlough civilians (funded by O&M funds), but that only buys the DoD $5 Billion between March and September, they need another $41 Billion, just until the end of the fiscal year!”
Not all civilians are paid by O&M funding. Depends on where they work. They are paid for by the type of funds their parent agencies receive. Furloughing civilians paid for by other than O&M funds does not help the O&S problems.
“That leaves a very, very small piece of the pie to “pay” for this massive, massive cut (again, halfway through the fiscal year).”
Make up your mind. Did DoD fail to plan for this? DoD kept the funding pedal all the way to the floor even though the law said their could be a sequestration. Not the fault of the service chiefs but the political appointees. Had these appointees allowed the services to plan for this, then the impacts would have been spread over 12 not 6 months.
“Surely you must recognize that a sad but necessary part of that will involve the downsizing and/or dismantling the Federal military machine.
Like it or not this machine has in the past always proven to be little more than a tool of Washington, not liberty, and certainly not the now dead Constitution.”
It is constitutional and one of the powers of the federal government.
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