That didn’t take long. It’s only been a few hours since Defense Secretary Robert Gates proposed a radical overhaul of the Pentagon’s arsenal. And already, Congress is lashing out at the plan. Republican Senator James Inhofe, for one, called it "gutting our military."
"The Obama budget has increased welfare to the point where his ten-year budget will triple the public national debt in ten years," he added in a YouTube video, shot in Afghanistan. "And all the time we’re doing this, increasing all these welfares [sic] to an unconscionable high, the only thing in the budget that’s being cut is military."
Other leading Republicans were less – why sugar-coat it? – hysterical. But they expressed reservations about the plan, too. We "appreciate Secretary Gates’ effort to shape the Department of Defense so that we more effectively fight the wars our troops are engaged in today; however, we are concerned about the tradeoffs involved in re-balancing the Department.," Rep. John McHugh, the Ranking Member of the House Armed Services Committee, said in a statement.
But even some top Democrats seemed lukewarm about Gates’ budget proposal. "This is a good faith effort," House Armed Services Committee Chairman Rep. Ike Skelton said in a statement of his own. "However, the buck stops with Congress, which has the critical Constitutional responsibility to decide whether to support these proposals. In the weeks ahead, my colleagues and I will carefully consider these proposals."
Now, some of the opposition is to be expected. All these Congresscritters have defense contractors, and defense contracting jobs, in their districts. Take Inhofe, for instance. As Ares notes, the Senator’s "pet project, the Future Combat Systems Non-Line of Sight cannon, is slated to be cut, along with the other FCS ground vehicles. And while Inhofe loves the cannon, don’t forget that he also loves that parts of it were set be built in his state, which would create about 100 local jobs."
But this parochial opposition may have actually encouraged the Pentagon and the White House to be more sweeping in its plans, one key Congressional staffer suggests. Previous administrations have tried to cut bloated, poor-performing defense projects onesy-twosy — only to be rejected by the Hill. Going after a whole range of weak programs at once makes it more likely that at least some of the Pentagon’s sickliest weapons projects will be amputated. Which is probably why long-time defense reform champion Sen. John McCain is fired up about Gates’ plan, calling it a "major step in the right direction." (Last summer, for example, his aides called for killing FCS.)
McCain added, "It has long been necessary to shift spending away from weapon systems plagued by scheduling and cost overruns to ones that strike the correct balance between the needs of our deployed forces and the requirements for meeting the emerging threats of tomorrow."
UPDATE: As you’d expect, more Congresscritters are gnashing their teeth over the loss of hometown projects. Politico’s Jen DiMascio reviews:
Meanwhile, Spencer shows how Gates will respond to cries that he’s a job-killer.
ALSO:
