Cut Bureaucracy, Not Bases

By U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina)
May 28, 2012
 

As we honor those who have fought, bled, and made the ultimate sacrifice in defense of their nation, we must also keep in mind the soldiers,sailors, and marines who serve today.  Many of them serve in far offlands, but the work they do is invaluable in keeping our nation safe.

The first priority for the federal government is to provide for ournation’s defense.  As we enter into a time where fiscal austerity hasgained greater importance, we must ensure that we continue to provideour military with the resources to meet our national security needs.  While we must ask the military to do more with less, we cannot, andshould not, ask them to bear a dramatically disproportionate share ofthe burden.  

Unfortunately, that is exactly what is happening.

Last summer, the debt-limit debate offered our nation a primeopportunity to stop kicking the can down the road and get our fiscalhouse in order.  However, instead of taking concrete actions likepassing a Balanced Budget Amendment to the Constitution, Congress choose to pass the poorly conceived Budget Control Act (BCA) of 2011.  Whilethe legislation contained numerous provisions designed to avoid makingtough decisions, it did contain language known as a “sequestration” that will do more damage to our military than any foreign force or terrorist organization.  

The sequestration provisions in the Budget Control Act will force across the board cuts in domestic and military spending of $1.2 trillion overten years.  When the $497 billion sequestration provisions are combinedwith the $487 billion defense cuts President Obama had already putforward, our defense spending will be cut by over one trillion dollars.  These cuts begin on January 1, 2013, when the Department of Defensewill be faced with as much as a 23% across the board cut to theirbudget.

A cut of this magnitude will hollow out the greatest fighting force inthe world.  At a Senate Armed Services Committee, I asked Secretary ofDefense Leon Panetta if the sequester would be tantamount to shootingourselves in the foot.  He responded that we would be “shootingourselves in the head” and that such cuts would “decimate our defense.”

The consequences to our nation’s defense infrastructure, of which SouthCarolina plays an integral role, would be severe.  These deep cutscreate increased uncertainty for both our military and defenseindustrial base, and come at a time when threats to our nation areincreasing not declining.

Last November, Senator John McCain and I sent a letter requestingconcrete details regarding the impacts of sequestration.  SecretaryPanetta responded that “rough estimates suggest after ten years of these cuts, we would have the smallest ground force since 1940, the smallestnumber of ships since 1915, and the smallest Air Force in its history.”

And closer to home, South Carolinians’ service to our national defensethrough military bases and training facilities, defense contractors andother civilian support are substantial.  The economic footprint is anestimated $13 billion a year in South Carolina.  

South Carolina is home to some of the finest military installations inthe country.  The Joint Base Charleston community is home to 20,172employees.  Shaw Air Force Base in Sumter supports over 7,317 militaryand civilian employees and 8,206 family members.  Marine Corps AirStation Beaufort is slated to receive a squadron of F-35s.  But the F-35 program has already faced delays, and with the uncertaintysequestration creates this program may be in danger.  Fort Jackson isthe largest and most active Initial Entry Training Center in the U.S.Army, training in excess of 36,000 soldiers each year.

The solution is not to abandon the plan of reducing spending by $1.2trillion over ten years, but to do it in a responsible way that prevents destroying the military.  I am proposing that to achieve the samesavings, we should look to reduce the federal civilian workforce ratherthan gutting the military.  Instead of hiring all three workers thatretire, simply hire two, which would require the federal government tobe more efficient.  

We need to get our fiscal house in order, and I am all for findingresponsible savings in the Defense budget.  But an arbitraryacross-the-board cut, without a thorough look at capability, is bothfoolish and dangerous.

It weakens our national security, unduly puts our soldiers at increased risk, and will hurt our state.

Now is not the time to sit on the sidelines and watch our nationaldefense infrastructure crumble because Congressional leaders can’t findmore responsible ways to reduce the deficit.