House Armed Services Committee: The Defense Drumbeat Blog

 

Despite recent attempts by the media to recast the President’s role in the current debate on sequester, in the months leading up to the debt ceiling negotiations, President Obama and his administration repeatedly offered to put draconian cuts to our military “squarely on the table.”  This resulted in nearly $1 trillion in cuts to our men and women in uniform.  While House Republicans have passed legislation to replace these cuts, the President has been AWOL – absent without leadership. The below articles highlight the President’s role:

FLASHBACK:  APRIL 2011:  PRESIDENT OBAMA PLACED DEFENSE SPENDING “SQUARELY ON THE TABLE” MONTHS PRIOR TO BUDGET CONTROL ACT. 

“WITH OBAMA’S SPEECH, MOMENTUM GATHERING TO CUT DEFENSE SPENDING”

Christian Science Monitor – “President Obama on Wednesday placed defense spending squarely on the table as one way to help rein in a ballooning federal deficit, a move that may reopen political attacks on Democrats as soft on national security but that is likely to have some support from tea party Republicans bent on dramatically reducing the size – and price tag – of government… Finding $400 billion in cuts over the next 12 years, as Mr. Obama has proposed, will mean identifying “missions the country is willing to have the military forgo,” said Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell on Wednesday.”

FLASHBACK:  JULY 2011:  PRESIDENT USES TWITTER TOWN HALL TO CALL EXAGGERATE SIZE OF DEFENSE BUDGET, CALLS FOR “MODEST CHANGES” TO SHIFT SPENDING FROM DEFENSE TO SOCIAL PROGRAMS
ABC News – President Obama: “The nice thing about the defense budget is it’s so big, it’s so huge, that, you know, a one percent reduction is the equivalent of the education budget…”   “It’s so big [the defense budget] that you can make relatively modest changes to defense that end up giving you a lot of headroom to fund things like basic research or student loans or things like that.” 

FLASHBACK: SEPTEMBER 2011:  PRESIDENT TO COMMANDERS ON CUTS:  “LET’S DO IT NOW”

Washington Post – “On Sept. 7, during his weekly meeting with Panetta, Obama said he wanted to devote a substantial amount of time to the strategic review.  Donilon convened Panetta, White House budget director Jacob J. Lew and Adm. Mike Mullen, then at the end of his tenure as chairman of the Joint Chiefs, a week later at the White House. The meeting was to come up with some specific choices to present to Obama to manage the impending cuts. “We’re going to have to do this at some point as a country,” Obama told them two days later at the first meeting with his civilian advisers and commanders. “Let’s do it now.”

FLASHBACK: NOVEMBER 2011: PRESIDENT ISSUES VETO THREAT AGAINST ATTEMPTS TO RESOLVE SEQUESTER

The Hill – “White House Press Secretary Jay Carney on Tuesday doubled down on President Obama’s threat to veto any attempt to get around the automatic spending cuts triggered by Monday’s failure of the debt supercommittee.   There is “no wiggle room” in the veto threat, Carney told reporters.”

FLASHBACK: JANUARY 2012:  “DEFENSE BUDGET CUTS OUTLINED BY OBAMA”
Politico:  “President Barack Obama on Thursday unveiled a revamped U.S. defense strategy at the Pentagon, outlining a plan for a smaller military that he said can still defeat any adversary even as deep spending cuts loom over the next decade.”

This article can be read here: http://armedservices.house.gov/index.cfm/2012/7/hasc-fact-sheet-president-placed-defense-squarely-on-the-table