Defense Secretary Ashton Carter said Thursday that President Obama will oppose Republican budget plans to increase the Pentagon’s funding while maintaining steep cuts for other federal agencies.
“The current proposal to shoehorn [the Defense Department’s] base budget into our contingency accounts would fail to solve the problem while also undermining basic principles of accountability and responsible long term planning,” Carter said at a speech at the State Department.
On Wednesday the House passed a budget that kept sequestration-required cuts for all other federal agencies, such as the Department of Homeland Security and the State Department, but made up for the loss of funding to the Defense Department by adding $96 billion to an emergency wartime funding account that is not subject to the sequester.
The account, known as the overseas contingency operations account, was intended to help commanders deal with the unexpected costs of war. It was not to be used as a catch-all to fund future aircraft, nor to make up for the funding crisis that the 2011 bill has created for the Pentagon.
House Republicans inserted the $96 billion to ensure that both fiscally conservative Republicans and defense hawk Republicans would support the bill — fiscal conservatives could support the sequester caps, while defense hawks could support the additional funding.
Carter said the cuts to State, the Treasury Department and Homeland Security will create security risks “that will ultimately accrue to our troops and to our nation’s security. That is why President Obama has said he will not [support the bill.]”
