The Sequester is Still Here — And Still a Problem
Although Congress avoided further sequestration in 2016, it is not entirely off the table for the upcoming fiscal year. The confirmation hearing of General (ret.) James Mattis before the Senate Armed Services Committee provides Congress with the first opportunity to engage with the incoming Administration on whether or how this destructive and dangerous mechanism can be undone.
In their final report to President Obama in August, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) concluded that if the discretionary limits for 2017 remain unchanged, a sequestration of $17 million in the defense category and $775 million in the non-defense, or domestic, category must take effect. There is some ambiguity as to whether elimination of the sequester is a priority for the incoming administration. In 2013, President-elect Trump stated that cuts made by the sequester were only “a very small percentage of the cuts that should be made. And I think, really, it’s being over-exaggerated.” Yet on the campaign trail in 2016, he stated that he would ask Congress to fully eliminate the sequester in order to rebuild the military. At the same time his nominee for budget director, Rep. Mick Mulvaney, has shown a strong predilection to shut down the government during debt ceiling negotiations.
The fact of the matter is that the mandatory nature of these cuts — and the broader fiscal uncertainty facing (and as a result of) the incoming administration — is hurting our military preparedness. As Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Joseph Dunford explained with regards to the fiscal year 2017 defense budget request, the ability to respond to challenges was constrained by a “fiscal environment that has hampered our ability to plan and allocate resources most effectively.” In its need to absorb $800 billion in cuts, the joint forces shifted funding and seriously underinvested in critical capabilities, resulting in heavily reduced flight readiness for pilots in all services. In turn, this has not only led to a reduction in aircraft able to take to the sky but likely to more in-flight accidents.
For instance, on January 14, 2016, off the coast of Hawaii, 12 Marines were killed after two helicopters collided due to pilot error, poor training, and command problems. Herein lies the inherent danger that the sequester presents: It is an irresponsible, if not outright dangerous, law that automatically and arbitrarily makes across-the-board budget cuts without an eye to the long-term operations undertaken by the government to ensure national security.
Part of the problem regarding ill-prepared military personnel and outdated equipment involves the ambiguities surrounding the Overseas Contingency Operation (OCO) fund. Originally created in order to quickly finance the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Overseas Contingency Operation (OCO) fund is immune to any sequestration cuts — as opposed to the Pentagon’s baseline budget, which, due to the 2013 sequester, needed to cut $487 billion over the next decade. In 2016, the House and Senate flooded the OCO fund account with defense slush money to seemingly compensate for the cuts in the defense baseline budget. However, more than just tanks and planes are needed to properly bolster the strategic planning that is crucial to keeping the U.S. engaged in a changing world.
The central problem with the sequester — aside from the fact that it is a tool designed to stop government from working — is the false dichotomy it presents. Separating hard security monies in the OCO from the rest of the budget is a recipe for ineffective policy; a fully-funded government is essential to the intertwined prosperity and security of America at home and abroad.
The OCO fund does not take into consideration emerging or evolving threats like cybersecurity vulnerabilities, infectious diseases, and climate change; therefore funding for these threats falls to the Pentagon’s baseline budget or even outside of the Pentagon despite their relevancy to the security of the nation. For example, USAID funding levels can have a direct impact on programs designed to reduce instability and combat violent extremism — challenges that left unchecked may require U.S. military intervention. At the same time, the interaction between the Pentagon’s baseline and the OCO has long been unclear, with programs unrelated to the wars receiving funding from OCO. This may be a feel-good panacea and politically expedient — but it does a disservice to our men and women in uniform.
As much as some may hope it is the case, national security cannot be funded piecemeal — nor can it be detached from the rest of the government apparatus if the essential, holistic goals of security and prosperity are to be pursued. The audacious response would be a wholesale revamping of the Congressional budgeting approaches to allow for multi-year and increased interagency funding; but to start, Congress must stop using the OCO to circumvent its own poor policymaking choices and instead return to building responsible budgets that leverage the intertwined capabilities of the U.S. government. OCO is there for contingencies — not as a gimmick.
Our defense apparatus is at its best when it is resourced to be forward-thinking; it is now up to our lawmakers to equip our military leaders to prepare for the widest range of threats possible moving forward, and that conversation should begin with today’s hearing.
Dr. Mark Jacobson is a former adviser to the Secretaries of Defense and Navy as well as a former staff member on the Senate Armed Services Committee. He is a veteran of the war in Afghanistan and currently serves as a senior advisor to the Truman Project and is a Senior Fellow at Salve Regina University’s Pell Center for International Relations and Public Policy. Views expressed are his own.
