Sen. Sessions’s analysis: Defense cut far more than other programs under sequestration

By Pete Kasperowicz - 11/23/11 04:15 PM ET

Senate Budget Committee ranking member Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) released an analysis this week showing that the Defense Department would suffer much more than other programs under the automatic cuts to planned spending that Congress is now required to make.

As other Republicans in the Senate have done, Sessions said he believes the Defense cuts go “too far,” and said the nearly $500 billion cut over 10 years would force the growth in Defense spending far lower than the growth in other programs.

“The effect on Defense is clearly disproportionate,” he said. “The Defense budget will experience a dramatic decrease — a net inflation-adjusted decrease of around 20 percent — while, cumulatively, the other five-sixths of the budget will see an inflation-adjusted increase of nearly 50 percent.

“Every part of our budget must be made more lean, but dramatically reducing Defense while ignoring the primary drivers of our debt is both unwise and dangerous.”

Sessions’s office said he would continue to make the case that trimming Defense spending more than other areas is unwise, part of his effort not to roll back the sequestration, but to rebalance it. One Senate aide said it is not logical to cut spending in a way that allows most programs to continue growing as usual, while only Defense is forced to stay essentially level funded, which amounts to a cut when inflation is taken into account.

According to Sessions’s analysis, Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security and income-support programs such as unemployment insurance would be nearly untouched by sequestration — compared to President Obama’s budget plan — even after cuts to planned spending. These programs would grow 112 percent, 73 percent, 66 percent and 11 percent, respectively, under the sequestration, about the same as they grew under Obama's plan.

Defense spending under the sequestration, however, would grow only 2 percent over the next decade, compared to the Obama administration’s planned 21 percent increase.

Defense also fares poorly when comparing the sequestration to the Congressional Budget Office baseline for the next decade. CBO’s baseline saw a 24 percent increase in Defense spending, but it would rise only 5 percent under the sequestration, and again, other major programs would largely maintain their expected growth, or fall just a little below those growth levels.