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The top Democrat on the Republican-led House Armed Services Committee, Rep. Adam Smith, D-Wash., will play a leading role in shepherding the Obama administration’s defense agenda through Congress as military spending declines as part of a broader drive to cut the country’s debt.
In August, lawmakers passed the Budget Control Act that raised America’s borrowing limit on condition that $2.1 trillion be cut from the nation’s debt. The first half of that would come from spending caps imposed on discretionary spending over the next decade, including $487 billion from the Pentagon over the 10-year period.
If Congress fails to raise the remaining $1.2 trillion, automatic spending cuts would start in January 2013, including an additional $500 billion cut automatically from DoD.
In January, the administration issued a new strategy to shape its defense cuts, followed on Jan. 26 with a preview of the 2013 spending request that will be submitted to Congress Feb. 13.
Smith has served in Congress and on the Armed Services Committee since 1997, and is often at odds with Rep. Howard “Buck” McKeon, R-Calif., who is the committee’s chairman and ardent critic of the administration’s proposed defense cuts.
Q. What was your first take on DoD’s five-year spending plan?
A. I think it’s a pretty good plan. I mean, this reflects some tough choices that are going to have to be made, but I think the decisions are pretty sound and they fit clearly within an overall national security strategy that protects us in the areas that are our biggest concerns, in terms of dealing with Iran, dealing with North Korea, making sure we have a presence in Asia, winding down the effort in Afghanistan. I think it meets our national security needs. Now, there are some tough choices involved there, but again, that’s to be expected. Business as usual isn’t going to get us the national security posture that we want. I think that was the purpose of the strategic review: Where are we spending money that is not necessarily well spent? How can we more efficiently use our resources to meet an overall goal? I think this does that.
Q. Panetta and his deputy, Ashton Carter, emphasized that this budget should be viewed as a package and that tinkering in one area would affect another. It sounded like a message to lawmakers that there isn’t much room to maneuver. Did they convey the same point to you?
A. I think what they’re saying is this fits a strategy. Now, that doesn’t mean there isn’t some flexibility to move this around, but what I hope we’ll do in Congress is that we will look at it and say, if we want to make a change, let’s make sure that change reflects a strategy, not just a parochial concern — number one. And, number two; understand that this is the budget that Congress gave the Pentagon. It was Republicans and Democrats supporting the Budget Control Act that gave them these numbers. The Republican-controlled House passed this bill, overwhelmingly, that told the Pentagon: This is how much money you’re going to have to spend.
So, now that the Pentagon has actually made the tough choices in terms of how to spend it, and I think made them quite well to reflect a broader strategy, for Congress to come along and say, ‘Oh, we can’t afford these cuts’ — you passed them. I think some of the rhetoric since this has come out has lost track of that fundamental reality that this is in keeping with the Budget Control Act, passed into law by Congress and the president.
Q. Now that you’ve heard some of the congressional reaction to the initial 2013 budget details, are you worried that the committee will spend more time pushing back on the overall cuts versus looking at the actual details?
A. What I’m worried about is you get into more parochial fights on this issue or that issue and we lose track of an overarching strategy. If the House or the Senate — Republican or Democratic — leadership wants to say, we’ve got a different strategy and here’s where we think the money should be spent, that’s one thing. But to just come along and say, ‘don’t cut this; don’t cut that,’ doesn’t reflect the strategy, first and foremost, nor the budget that the Pentagon is required to work with.
Whenever you’re the person with the only plan that’s out there, you’re going to be attacked. We’ll see what alternative plans are actually put on the table, as opposed to just sniping at one piece of it here or one piece of it there. What is the actual strategy that someone who doesn’t like this strategy would put on the table? What are they going to cut? What are they going to spend their money on? Let’s evaluate it based on that as opposed to evaluating the president’s strategy up against some picture-perfect infinite budget dreamland.
Q. Some people are saying the Obama administration may have punted some bigger decisions until after the election, from keeping the 11th aircraft carrier to reforming military benefits to the size of the nuclear arsenal. Do you think so?
A. Well, they fit the budget. The budget required the cuts and they had their five-year numbers. One thing we’re going to have to look at is: Do the Pentagon’s numbers add up? Do they have a plan in place that actually meets the numbers required or are they doing some rounding games? I don’t know.
Q. The Pentagon announced that they’ll request at least one round of base closures. How do you think that will be received by Congress?
A. I don’t know if Congress is going to get on board with it, but it needs to be done. We’re making significant changes in the force structure. I think without question we’re going to have to do base realignment. I don’t see how any person looking at the strategy and looking at the changes coming down could conclude otherwise.
Q. Are you concerned by any of the rhetoric you hear around Washington in regard to China? Is there a risk of creating a self-fulfilling prophecy?
A. I am concerned. I do think that a lot of times the rhetoric gets into a Cold War mentality of, ‘Well, we have to build this to counter that’ and China sees that and says, ‘Well, if they’re doing that, then we have to do this.’ We, I think, need to look at China as a country that has a definitive stake in global stability. There is no way on Earth that it is in their best interests or our best interests to have any sort of military conflict between the two of us. I hope that we understand that in our rhetoric and work toward it.
Obviously, we have disagreements over a variety of different issues, but we have disagreements with a lot of different countries. I’ll tell you, there are a number of things that will determine how peaceful and stable the next 50 years are, but one of the top two is clearly whether or not we can find a way to peacefully coexist with China.
Q. What is the other one?
A. Our ability to deal with al-Qaida and their terrorist threat and other asymmetric threats. I have a long-winded answer on that one, because I think that really also has to do with stability in some unstable places and overall global development. When you have countries like Yemen and Somalia and Afghani-stan, and even to some extent, Pakistan, which are having major governance problems and major problems in terms of providing for their people through adequate development and adequate governance, that’s what feeds the instability. So, it’s not so much just al-Qaida as it’s the issue of ungoverned and ungovernable states and the chaos they can spread. How do we do global development better?
Q. Where does sequestration fit in? How do you think that will play out?
A. Sequestration is not going to happen. Now, there are a couple of different ways this could play out. The best way for it to play out would be for us all to come together and pass a 10-year budget that actually saves that $1.2 trillion, preferably more. That would be happy result No. 1 and that’s what I’m working toward.
The second thing is the Bush tax cuts expire at the end of this year. That’s $4.2 trillion. If we don’t act — House, Senate and president — they all come back, $4.2 trillion.
Now, there are several different rules here. Rule No. 1 is that you’re always in a better position if you’re hoping Congress doesn’t act, because it’s hard to get the House, Senate and president to agree. Typically trumping that rule in this case would be it’s a tax cut and looking at what we did two years ago, in 2010, we’ll just extend it.
However, we have the third counterpoint here, which is if we pass and continue the Bush tax cuts completely that is the act that will force sequestration in December of 2012. Throw all that into the stew and I don’t think we pass a complete continuation of the Bush tax cuts, knowing that it will cause sequestration to actually happen.
So, in December of 2012, one of two things is going to happen. Either A), we’re going to get some kind of grand bargain that will save at least the $1.2 trillion and stop sequestration, or B), we will have a stalemate for at least a couple of weeks in January; the Bush tax cuts will all come back and sequestration will be avoided.
The Republicans and others are talking about ‘Well, couldn’t we just year by year find the savings to stop sequestration from happening?’ That’s great. That’s all we need, just one more thing that every year we have to come up with, some cobbled together solution to throw on top of the tax cuts, to throw on top of the Medicare fix, all these other things that we’ve been doing year by year. I am hoping that people will realize the folly of that and not do a year-by-year thing.
Q. Would you support it if the committee voted on that?
A. I certainly wouldn’t vote to separate out defense. I would not support that. If you’re going stop sequestration then stop sequestration on all of them. If they came up with a plan that said, ‘OK, here’s what we’re going to cut to get one year of savings’ ... You know, I don’t know if I would support it or not. I haven’t decided. I would argue and urge us to do a 10-year solution, not a one-year solution, because that just puts us down the road to further madness.
