–US Defense Secretary To Testify Before House, Senate Budget Panels
–Panetta Expected To Call Deficit Cuts A Security Imperative
–Lawmakers Likely To Seek Panetta’s Support For Sequestration Overhaul

By John Shaw

WASHINGTON (MNI) – In recent years when the House and Senate Budget
Committees probed the administration’s defense budget, the Pentagon
would be represented at the hearings by the department’s number two
official, the deputy secretary of defense.

This year the two congressional budget panels will hear from the
leader of the Pentagon, U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta.

Panetta will testify Tuesday at 9:30 a.m. before the Senate Budget
Committee and Wednesday at 2 p.m. before the House Budget panel.

Panetta’s decision to visit the House and Senate Budget panels may
be partly seen as a way for him to pay respect to the budget panels and
the congressional budget process that was at the heart of his
congressional career.

Panetta was the chairman of the House Budget Committee in the late
1980s and early 1990s. He left Congress in 1993 to become the White
House budget director under President Clinton and then later served as
Clinton’s chief of staff.

But Panetta’s appearances before the congressional budget panels
this week will also draw him into the contentious debate about the
trajectory of defense spending and the role of defense spending
reductions in overall deficit reduction efforts.

As part of last summer’s debt ceiling agreement, Congress mandated
ten-year discretionary spending cuts of about $1 trillion, with $487
billion coming from the defense budget.

The subsequent failure of Congress’ Super Committee to agree on
further deficit reduction last fall will trigger an additional $492
billion in defense cuts over the coming nine years, beginning in January
of 2013.

Many lawmakers, especially Republicans, believe the initial $487
billion in defense cuts are far too deep and argue that an additional
$492 billion in cuts is almost unfathomable and would imperil national
security.

This week, lawmakers are likely to press Panetta to support an
overhaul of the so-called sequestration process which mandates the
second round of defense cuts.

In an appearance before the Senate Armed Services Committee on Feb.
14, Panetta said the current Pentagon budget is only trying to deal with
the initial $487 billion in spending savings that are mandated.

Panetta said the Pentagon request for the 2013 fiscal year is for
$525 billion for his department’s base budget and $89 billion for the
wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

“The United States is at a strategic turning point after a decade
of war and substantial growth in defense budgets,” Panetta said in
testimony earlier this month to the Senate Armed Services Committee.

“Deficit reduction is a critical national security priority in and
of itself. We at the Department decided that this crisis presented us
with the opportunity to establish a new strategy for the force of the
future,” he said.

The House and Senate Budget Committees are expected to work on
their respective FY’13 budget resolutions in March and each resolution
will deal with the difficult issue of future defense spending.

** Market News International Washington Bureau: (202) 371-2121 **

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