Vice Chief Nominee Hints At Program Cuts Ahead

 

U.S. Navy F-18

Jul 23, 2011 By Jen DiMascio AviationWeek.com

As large cuts to the U.S. defense budget are picking up an air of inevitability, more program kills are probably on their way, the military’s likely next second-in-command told senators July 21.

“Some of these programs, depending on the pressures, depending on the decisions that are made by the senior leadership of the department based on a comprehensive review, may end up falling by the wayside,” Adm. James Winnefeld said during his nomination hearing to become the next vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. “I hope that those decisions can be made with a strategy in mind.”

At the same time, Winnefeld told senators that budget reductions should avoid hollowing the military and doing “irreversible harm” to the defense industrial base.

The potential for budget reductions was a prominent theme at the Senate Armed Services Committee hearing, which came one day after the so-called Gang of Six senators agreed to adopt the Bowles-Simpson deficit reduction recommendations as part of a larger agreement to raise the debt ceiling.

Those high-level recommendations would hand down nearly $900 billion in security cuts, causing Republicans on the House Armed Services Committee to register a complaint with the president. They sent a letter urging President Barack Obama to “protect a strong national defense while also seeking fiscal constraint in the vast array of programs run by the federal government.”

While the deficit reduction talks continue to be a moving target, even some of the biggest defense hawks in the Senate are acknowledging the Pentagon will face the knife.

Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.), a bona fide defense supporter who is now the top Republican on the Senate Budget Committee, says the nation is borrowing 40 cents on every dollar it spends. Since defense represents about half of the nation’s discretionary spending, “you’ll have to be a part of the belt tightening,” Sessions declares.

One of the biggest criticisms of the Bowles-Simpson commission recommendations is that they lack specificity. Taxpayers for Common Sense and the Project on Government Oversight floated their own, very specific, proposal on Thursday to get rid of $600 billion over 10 years in national security spending. The watchdog groups are recommending some doozies, including lopping off 15% of services contractors and replacing the Marine Corps and Navy versions of the Joint Strike Fighter with the F/A-18E and F model aircraft.

For their part, contractors are growing anxious about the possibility that the government will actually default on its debt obligations, and warning that a failure to craft an agreement could have lasting consequences.

The debt ceiling debate does need to come to a close with a bipartisan agreement, Marion Blakey, president of the Aerospace Industries Association, tells Aviation Week. If the government defaults and then comes to an agreement, “everything doesn’t just go back to normal,” she says.

The Professional Services Council, which represents a wide swath of defense contractors, is advising its members to begin getting in line now for payments to offset any future cash-flow problems by the government that would trickle their way, says Alan Chvotkin, executive vice president.

And while defense companies have been lobbying to avoid top-line cuts to the Pentagon budget, they’re even more spooked by the uncertainty. “They would take less to know more,” Chvotkin says.