Gates Calls on Congress to Pass Budget
The New York Times reports:
OTTAWA — Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates, escalating his budget battle with Congress, has issued an unusually passionate warning that the impasse over this year’s federal spending package threatens the military’s readiness to fight.
“I have a crisis on my doorstep,” Mr. Gates said, making the case that stopgap spending bills in place since Sept. 30 could leave the Pentagon $23 billion short of the money needed for operations, training and maintenance. “Frankly, that’s how you hollow out a military, even in wartime. This has to do with the security of the country.”
Mr. Gates was aboard an Air Force jet on his way to meetings here with his Canadian counterpart when he made his remarks to reporters late Wednesday.
A former C.I.A. director who rarely shows emotion in public, Mr. Gates was visibly agitated as he read from a full page of handwritten notes to urge Congress to pass a 2011 spending bill before opening the debate on his proposals for 2012 and beyond.
The defense secretary also revealed one steep cut in Pentagon spending in the coming budget for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq that might help persuade Congress to approve its regular budget. He said the request for supplementary spending to pay for operations in Afghanistan and Iraq for 2012 will be about $39 billion less than this year, dropping to $120 billion from $159 billion.
Many on Capitol Hill are criticizing his proposals to cancel weapons programs and trim the Defense Department’s bureaucracy in 2012 and beyond, but Mr. Gates dismissed those criticisms as idle talk unless members of Congress break the stalemate and pass this year’s spending plan. Otherwise, he said, the military could face disruptive, ad hoc cuts to meet the temporary spending cap.
There is no end in sight to the partisan fights over federal spending that have prevented Congress from passing a 2011 federal budget four months into the fiscal year. The stalemate could worsen — Republicans in Congress seem divided between those who seek to protect military spending and those who want everything on the table, including the Pentagon’s budget.
The current temporary spending bill — the fourth so-called continuing resolution since Sept. 30 — expires in early March, and Congressional leaders say it is possible that the government will use these stopgap measures indefinitely.
