Speaking to the White House press corps. Tuesday

President Barack Obama, warning that he will not sign another Continuing Resolution (CR) this week without an agreement on the fiscal 2011 budget.

House Appropriations Chairman Hal Rogers introduced another temporary funding measure today that would fund the government for an additional week while lawmakers continue to debate the subject. The measure would provide funding for one additional week and cut $12 billion in discretionary spending. It also contains the Department of Defense Appropriations bill for fiscal 2011.

In his remarks to the White House press corps., Obama added that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and House Speaker John Boehner plan to meet this evening. If they can't reach an agreement, they are expected to return to the White House on Wednesday for further talks.

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Security Matters, FY11, quote of the day, Congress (all tags)

As expected, President Obama’s address last night focused heavily on the deficit.  Most points we saw coming:

So tonight, I am proposing that starting this year, we freeze annual domestic spending for the next five years. (Applause.) Now, this would reduce the deficit by more than $400 billion over the next decade, and will bring discretionary spending to the lowest share of our economy since Dwight Eisenhower was President.

This freeze will require painful cuts. Already, we've frozen the salaries of hardworking federal employees for the next two years. I've proposed cuts to things I care deeply about, like community action programs. The Secretary of Defense has also agreed to cut tens of billions of dollars in spending that he and his generals believe our military can do without. (Applause.)

(For a translation of that last part, on Defense, see Josh Rogin’s post at The Cable or mine yesterday.)

More importantly, though, in terms of the budget, the President’s speech contained lines like this:

Now, most of the cuts and savings I've proposed only address annual domestic spending, which represents a little more than 12 percent of our budget. To make further progress, we have to stop pretending that cutting this kind of spending alone will be enough. It won't. (Applause.)

The bipartisan fiscal commission I created last year made this crystal clear. I don't agree with all their proposals, but they made important progress. And their conclusion is that the only way to tackle our deficit is to cut excessive spending wherever we find it –- in domestic spending, defense spending, health care spending, and spending through tax breaks and loopholes. (Applause.)

Today, the Congressional Budget Office raised its estimate of the budget deficit to $1.5 trillion for this year, on track to beat out the previous record of $1.4 trillion, set in 2009.

House majority leader Eric Cantor, House budget chairman Paul Ryan and others have echoed the president’s insistence that the entire budget be on the table.  It has yet to be seen what, if anything, will come of these statements.  No doubt, cuts are coming.  The question is where.

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Security Matters, Defense Spending, fy11, fy12 (all tags)

By now, you’ve probably heard that the theme of tonight’s State of the Union will undoubtedly be the economy.  The President is expected to propose a five year freeze on non-security discretionary spending (déjà vu?) and a ban on earmarks, while Rep. Paul Ryan, who is no doubt practicing his best Reagan impression in front of the mirror as we speak, is gearing up to deliver the Republican response.

Meanwhile, House Republicans hoping to go into the evening with a little extra rhetorical firepower spent the day working to pass another bill because they said they would.  The measure, passed 256-165, would permit Rep. Ryan to reduce all non-security discretionary spending to fiscal 2008 levels or below, but it is another hortatory exercise that is not going anywhere.

Left or right, though, one thing is certain, most proposals have been carefully crafted to exclude “security spending”: Defense, Homeland Security, and Veterans Affairs.

CBS News correspondent Mark Knoller reports via Twitter that the President will call for $78 billion in defense cuts over the next five years.  One would assume this means he will echo Secretary Gates’ recent announcement citing the same numbers.

The problem here is that the term “cut” is used very loosely in Gates’ plan for the defense budget.

Last year’s $100 billion efficiencies initiative was never meant to reduce the Pentagon’s budget, nor contribute to deficit reduction.  Rather, it was meant to reduce Pentagon waste and boost more important mission-critical projects, since the entire $100 billion would be reinvested in DoD.  More importantly, though, it was meant to stave off the harsh and inevitable reality that eventually, the Pentagon may have actually to reduce its budget.

Unfortunately for Gates, the Obama Administration was not satisfied.  When Jacob Lew took over as the new director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), he directed Gates to trim $150 billion more, and would not allow the Defense Department to keep the savings.

Gates eventually negotiated the $150 billion figure down to $78 billion, the same $78 billion President Obama is expected to discuss tonight, but as Gordon Adams points out in his remarks to The Cable, the math is a little fuzzy:

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Security Matters, Defense Spending, fy11, fy12 (all tags)

A new New York Times/CBS News poll, based on telephone interviews conducted Jan. 15-19 with over a thousand US adults, contains some interesting statistics on the priorities of the American public.  

It is clear from the numbers that the deficit is a major concern, and Americans would, not surprisingly, prefer the deficit be addressed through spending cuts, rather than higher taxes.  When asked what they would cut, however, that preference seems to disappear.  Nearly two-thirds of Americans chose higher payroll taxes for Medicare and Social Security over reduced benefits in either program.  And when asked to choose among cuts to Medicare, Social Security or military spending – all programs that have grown exponentially over the past decade – 55 percent said cut the Pentagon.

By the way, the House is set to vote this week on a measure that would reduce all non-security spending to fiscal 2008 levels or below.  Clearly, Congress has been listening.

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Security Matters, Defense Spending, fy11, fy12 (all tags)

The Senate today approved the fiscal 2011 National Defense Authorization Act by unanimous consent, removing a provision that would have provided reparations to war survivors in Guam.  The bill now goes back to the House for final approval.  

Interestingly, no single Senator took the time to demand the reading of the new, over 900 page, bill, nor complain about a lack of time for debate, and neither Kyl nor DeMint complained that the bill was “jammed” through so close to Christmas.

The stripped down defense authorization came after House and Senate Democrats agreed to remove “controversial” elements, such as “don’t ask don’t tell” and a provision that would have allowed privately funded abortions in military hospitals.  But even without those controversial provisions, the measure packs a punch.

The bill provides for $725 billion in defense spending, well over the President’s $708 billion request, including $158.7 billion for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Unlike in previous years, the House passed the defense bill Friday with almost no debate on Afghanistan, despite a recent White House review suggesting that tough combat in Afghanistan would continue for years and troop withdrawals in 2011 would be small.

The bill contains $75 million to train and equip Yemeni counterterrorism forces; $205 million for a program with Israel to develop its "Iron Dome" defense system; $11.6 billion for Afghan security forces; and $1.5 billion for Iraqi security forces.

In addition, the bill will provide for a 1.4 percent pay raise for troops and guarantee health care coverage for children of service members up to age 26.  It would also continue restrictions on the Defense Department's ability to close Guantanamo Bay, including prohibiting the transfer of detainees to the U.S.

The measure was sold as having been stripped of all controversy and is being lauded for its broad bipartisan support, but perhaps the Senate is simply busy playing politics elsewhere?

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Security Matters, fy11, Defense Spending, NDAA (all tags)

Friday, after successfully stripping the fiscal 2011 National Defense Authorization Act of all controversy, the House sent their shiny new and simplified (over 900 pages worth of simple) version of the bill to the Senate.

Gone, but not lost, from the measure is a provision to repeal “don’t ask don’t tell,” the same provision that prevented the House’s original bill from moving forward earlier this year.  Also missing is a Senate Armed Services provision that would have allowed privately funded abortions in military hospitals.

The bill’s effect is limited, since programs are funded by individual appropriations bills, but it still packs a considerable punch.

The $725 billion measure would authorize a 1.4 percent pay raise for troops starting next month, extend Tricare coverage for military dependents to age 26, create a counter-IED database to assist with troop-protection efforts, and direct the development of better lightweight body armor for ground forces, among other provisions.

The bill fails to provide guidance either way on the F-35 extra engine, neither preventing nor providing for the program.  It would, however, require the troubled F-35 program to adhere to a new set of management guidelines under which decisions to commit to specific levels of production would be linked to the program’s progress in meeting specific milestones.

Now we wait for the Senate, which was expected to follow suit immediately, but remains bogged down in the details.  If the Senate amends the bill it will be sent back to the House, and days are limited.

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Security Matters, fy11, Defense Spending, NDAA (all tags)

Will any of that cut come from defense?  

The plan has not been formally announced, but AP reports that House Democratic leaders will propose a $7 billion cut in President Barack Obama's fiscal 2011 budget.  The plan is expected to be attached to the rule for floor consideration of the supplemental, which could move this week

The House won’t pass a budget resolution this year, but sees its upcoming one-year spending plan as the “functional equivalent of a budget resolution.”  The plan will set the cap for the 12 regular fiscal 2011 appropriations bills and include selected other provisions.

It looks like few of those bills are likely to be complete come Election Day, though, and will be passed in an omnibus bill during a lame duck session, post-election.

Stay tuned, the one-year “budget enforcement resolution” could be ready later today.

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Security Matters, Defense Spending, Congress, Budget Resolution, FY11 (all tags)

The United States remains the global leader in defense spending, surpassing the next closest country by more than eight times.

In 2008, the most recent year for which complete global data is available, the US approved $696.3 billion in defense budget authority (fiscal 2010 dollars). This figure includes funding for the Pentagon base budget, Department of Energy-administered nuclear weapons activities, and supplemental appropriations for Iraq and Afghanistan.

This number is eight times more than Russia, 15 times more than Japan, 47 times more than Israel, and nearly 73 times more than Iran.

See the full analysis - and the pie chart - here.

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Security Matters, Defense Spending, Gates, FY11, Global Defense Spending, Iran Watch, Russia, China (all tags)

For the fourth year in a row, the House Armed Services Committee has ignored Pentagon recommendations (including a veto threat from Sec. Gates) and approved the continued development of the F136 alternate engine, developed by General Electric and Rolls-Royce, for the F-35 fighter aircraft program.  

The measure would require the Pentagon to budget for the alternate engine starting in fiscal 2012 and withhold 25 percent of fiscal 2011 funds for F-35 development until the Pentagon's top arms buyer certified that all funds for the engine's development and procurement had been made available.

Rep. Roscoe Bartlett said during the markup today that “competition is warranted and critical and costs nothing more, according to the GAO.”

This isn’t quite true.  Money for the upfront costs of building and buying an alternate engine are not included in current DoD plans, so any increase is just that – an increase – and any actual savings brought about by competition will easily be eaten up.

"Study on top of study has shown that an extra fighter engine achieves marginal potential savings but heavy upfront costs -- nearly $3 billion worth," Gates said on May 8.

Pentagon press secretary Geoff Morrell reiterated later today that Gates would recommend a veto if Congress budgets any funds for the alternate engine:

Pursuing an extra engine is an unnecessary luxury we simply cannot afford, especially in our current fiscal condition… Any savings that might result from an engine competition are years away, purely hypothetical and likely modest at best.

Morrell went on to say that amount we will spend to complete an alternate engine for the F-35 “would prevent us from providing our warfighters with more urgently needed equipment.”

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Security Matters, Congress, Defense Spending, F-35, FY12, FY11 (all tags)

By Lt. Gen. Robert Gard and Laicie Olson

Invoking the memory of President Eisenhower’s farewell address last weekend, Defense Secretary Robert Gates delivered a fiery speech aimed at overhauling the Pentagon’s budget and restructuring its bureaucracy.

This rhetoric is anything but new, and builds on previous initiatives set out by the Secretary.  

Just last Monday at a Navy League conference, Gates urged the Navy and Marine Corps to think more deeply about the challenges facing their costliest platforms – including aircraft carriers that run $11 billion each, future ballistic missile submarines costing $7 billion apiece and a Marine Corps amphibious assault vehicle “suited only to Eisenhower’s D-Day planning.”

While he later joked that he is “not crazy” and wouldn’t just cut out a carrier, the speech ruffled more than a few feathers.

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Security Matters, Defense Spending, FY11, FY12, Gates, Congress, C-17, JSF, Extra Engine (all tags)