Tuesday 07 April 2009
by: Roxana Tiron | Visit article original @ The Hill
Defense Secretary Robert Gates (left) speaks at a news conference with Gen. James Cartwright, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. (Photo: Gerald Herbert / AP)
Congress has little chance of stopping President Obama's sweeping changes to the military budget, which would scrap several high-profile weapons programs.
Obama and Defense Secretary Robert Gates have stirred a hornet's nest in targeting six major programs for the chopping block. But congressional and defense-industry sources said it will be difficult to oppose the popular Obama, who will argue his proposed cuts will benefit soldiers fighting wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and better use limited resources during a recession.
Democrats, in particular, could be in a bind. If they vote to restore programs cut by Obama, they run the risk of weakening him politically and rousing the ire of their leaders.
Mostly, congressional sources predicted, lawmakers will end up fighting among themselves to win some funding for the programs they support.
"The politics have become draconian for the Democrats, especially the ones who want to add money for hardware programs," said Gordon Adams, national security and foreign policy professor at American University.
"They are kind of boxed in," said Adams, a former senior White House budget official during the Clinton administration. Any attempt they make to buy more hardware benefiting their state or district will have to be traded off against funds targeted for operations and military readiness, he said.
It says it is difficult to cut a weapons program since each one is built with a wide supplier base that gives the systems broad congressional support. For example, Boeing's C-17 cargo aircraft, which would end production under Gates's recommendation, may be assembled in California, for example, but its parts come from 43 other states, including Missouri, Arizona and Georgia.
But Obama and Gates are selling the proposal as meeting the needs of American soldiers, and efforts to block the recommendation to protect jobs back home may make members look hopelessly parochial.
Gates told reporters Wednesday that he is optimistic his recommendations will pass congressional muster. He also noted broad support in both parties for acquisition reform, and said that support will make it difficult for individual lawmakers to say specific programs should be exempted from cuts.
The package of changes announced by the Pentagon will make it "a little more difficult for a member to say, 'I'm all for acquisition reform and doing these things better and all that stuff is really good, but this one thing that happens to be in my state should be an exception,' " Gates said.
The more forcefully Obama engages lawmakers himself, the less inclined Democrats will be to significantly resist the president, said Steve Ellis, vice president at Taxpayers for Common Sense, a nonpartisan watchdog organization.
"It comes down to how much personal investment the president is willing to make, and if he backs up Secretary Gates then the Democrats will have a hard time bucking the tide," Ellis said.
Gates stressed on Tuesday that he consulted with the president on his proposed sweeping changes only a week ago, and that he has left the president "some room" to sign off on the final budget decisions. He said that the Office of Management and Budget has not yet reviewed the specifics of the proposal in detail.
Some lawmakers said the unprecedented move by Gates to announce the changes as recommendations ahead of an actual Pentagon budget request was a good way to deflect criticism from Obama. Others described it as an unorthodox approach to announcing what amounts to a significant military strategic shift.
Democratic aides expect that the president will personally engage lawmakers on the sweeping changes and will not send Gates, the lone holdover from the Bush administration, alone into the congressional fray.
While the budget appropriations and authorization process is not yet in full swing, aides and industry sources said there is very little lawmakers can do about the administration's most politically tenuous decisions, such as ending production of the F-22 fighter jet, the new combat search and rescue helicopter and the C-17 cargo aircraft.
Gates acknowledged that he anticipated strong congressional pushback from the beginning and that lawmakers will make some changes to his proposals.
"You never get 100 percent of what you ask for," Gates said Tuesday.
But Gates also is ready for his own pushback. Armed with the analyses behind his budget proposals, he is ready to present his rationale to the naysayers. He said he will sit down with those who take "substantive issues" with the decisions and walk them through that rationale.
Gates is also signaling to the military services that he expects strict "discipline" once the president officially signs off on the budget. Unlike previous years, he said that the services shouldn't argue against the budget request or "conduct guerrilla warfare" by trying to secure more money for their priorities from lawmakers.
Before Gates and Obama get ready to fight for their defense budget, an intense battle is brewing over the upcoming war emergency supplemental for the remainder of fiscal 2009. Defense appropriators and other lawmakers may see that as one of the last opportunities they have to fund their priorities, such as more of Boeing's C-17s, more F-18 Super Hornet fighter jets and perhaps more F-22s. But they could also encounter resistance from Democratic leaders who would want to pass the supplemental with most Democrats in support, according to congressional sources.
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