Just days after the White House and Congress hashed out the budget, Rep. Mac Thornberry (R-Texas), chair of the House Armed Services Committee, turned into a virtual mini-Boehner, crying over the daunting task of getting from the $38 billion defense increase he wanted to the $33 billion he got in the deal. “There will be real programs that are cut.… We are looking at them all and trying to do the least damage, but nobody should be under the illusion that you can do this in a non-painful way,” he said on Nov. 2.
Thornberry found over 20 percent of his “cuts” — amounting to some $1.1 billion — by taking advantage of the lower cost of fuel, a reduction that hurts no one at all. Another $450 million disappeared in “headquarters streamlining,” an initiative instituted by former Defense Secretary Bob Gates that aimed to achieve a 20 percent reduction in headquarters costs over five years. That initiative is already underway and still on track. Another $350 million was found as a result of “overestimation” or “underexecution” of personnel targets for the three services. These are paper savings: The number of people involved is just assumed to be smaller than previously projected.
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Estimates of the costs of reimbursing the Iraqis and Afghans for supporting U.S. operations in the theater were also re-estimated. The costs of supplying the Afghan military with fuel were similarly reduced, reflecting lower global prices.