Former Defense Secretary Robert Gates on Wednesday blasted the “gimmick” congressional leaders used to keep Pentagon spending from falling under mandatory budget caps, but broke with his successor by saying he would take the money “because what’s my alternative?”
“My approach when I was secretary was to take every dollar I could get wherever I could get it,” Gates told the Senate Armed Services Committee in his first appearance before the panel since leaving office in July 2011. “In the current paralyzed state, maybe there’s no alternative to getting the money this way.”
Gates was called as the first witness in a series of hearings that Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., hopes will lay the groundwork for a comprehensive overhaul of Pentagon operations as defense budgets shrink and the military’s global responsibilities don’t.
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But the conversation quickly turned to the long-running partisan dispute over federal spending that has snared the Pentagon in a vicious cycle of mandatory cuts and constant uncertainty.
President Obama and majorities of Democrats and Republicans in Congress agree that the sequestration process imposed on defense spending by the Budget Control Act of 2011 needs to be reversed, but they can’t agree on how to do it.
Gates called sequestration “a completely mindless and cowardly vehicle for budget cutting” that has contributed to partisan disputes over spending that have “imposed tremendous costs on the Defense Department and the taxpayer.”
This year’s version of the dispute focuses on $38 billion shifted from the baseline budget to a war-funding account not subject to the Budget Control Act’s caps.
The White House, backed by congressional Democratic leaders, has derided the spending fix as a “gimmick,” and President Obama has refused to sign any spending legislation unless Republicans agree to negotiate on lifting all the caps and ending the now five-year-old budget impasse.
The president also has vowed to veto the annual defense policy bill, which contains important Pentagon reforms supported by both parties, and authorizes, but does not spend, the disputed funds. The bill cleared Congress on Oct. 7 and was sent to the White House on Tuesday, beginning the 10-day period in which Obama must decide to keep his promise or sign the bill.
McCain has criticized the veto threat, noting that Obama is turning up his nose at money he and military leaders have said is desperately needed as leverage to push for greater domestic spending, though he admitted that what Gates said about the budget dispute “is frankly a damning, but accurate, indictment of our failure.”
In a Wall Street Journal op-ed published Wednesday, Defense Secretary Ash Carter made clear he supports the president’s position, saying the shift “merely papers over the defense-funding shortfall caused by sequestration, transferring funds from the regular budget into the department’s war-funding accounts to evade the Budget Control Act’s limitations. This budget maneuver leaves the military with no reasonable basis for the long-term planning and investments needed to keep our forces modern and relevant.
“Meanwhile, it would set us on a course to lock in sequestration for non-defense programs vital to our national security, including diplomatic, law enforcement, homeland security and financial tools that keep our nation safe. For these and other reasons, the president is vetoing this legislation,” he added.
