|
 |
 |
|
McKeon: 'Sequester is going to kick in'
A leading Republican opponent of sequestration on Friday conceded that cuts to the Pentagon are likely to be triggered in March despite his warnings about dire consequences for the military.
Rep. Buck McKeon (R-Calif.), the chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, said the question now facing lawmakers is how long the sequestered cuts will stay on the books.
"Sequester is going to kick in and as people see what it is ... that will hopefully force us" to come up with a solution for stopping them, McKeon told reporters during a breakfast in Washington.
He said lawmakers have "locked ourselves" into sequestration due to the impasse over how to replace the more than $1 trillion in automatic budget cuts that are coming over 10 years.
"We are going to be forced into it," McKeon said. "We have just not been able to get past the politics of it [all]."
Senate Democrats rolled out a sequestration alternative package on Thursday that would thwart the first $85 billion in spending cuts that at are set to begin March 1, but the proposal has little chance of passing.
"We are all frustrated," McKeon said, adding he was "hopeful it [would be] weeks, not months, [to] get this fixed" after the cuts come into play next month.
The debate over sequestration has exacerbated partisan tensions of McKeon’s Armed Services panel. The divide was apparent on Wednesday, when GOP members of the committee blamed the Pentagon for putting lawmakers at odds with the military over how to deal with the automatic cuts.
Rep. Rob Bishop (R-Utah) slammed the Defense Department for waiting until the last minute to plan for the across-the-board cuts.
"You are part of the problem … you helped cause this," Bishop angrily told the DOD and military witnesses.
On Friday, McKeon tried to walk back some of the accusations that panel members leveled against the military leaders. He said DOD leaders and military brass have done all they could to sound the alarm about the harmful effects of sequestration.
"From day one, [Defense] Secretary [Leon] Panetta has stated sequestration is a [terrible] thing ... [but] they follow their orders. Did they like it? I'm sure they did not," he said.
Pentagon officials "understand chain of command and they [respect] that," McKeon said.
"We are all frustrated ... [but] I do not think you can blame any of this on the military.”
