Defense Cuts: How Do You Buy 1.8 Submarines?

Enlarge Raytheon Co. The Defense Department planned to buy two Virginia-class submarines, like the USS Virginia, per year. A 10 percent across-the-board cut would fund only 1.8 submarines, making the purchase impossible.

Congress created a monster when it decided that the entire government will face across-the-board cuts in January, unless an agreement on deficit reduction is reached.
The deadline for the automatic spending cuts — called sequestration — is now approaching, and the Pentagon, Congress and the defense industry say those cuts would be horrible.
The Pentagon, perhaps the world's premier planning agency, views the threat of a 10 percent budget cut like an invasion from Mars. It's too awful, too scary and, as Pentagon press secretary George Little puts it, too "absurd."

Companies are limiting hiring and halting investments, largely due to the uncertainty of how sequestration cuts would be applied.

- David Hess, CEO Pratty & Whitney

"We typically don't plan against absurdities," Little says.
Sequestration is an absurdity, so terrible it was never supposed to happen. Why is it absurd? Because it requires that all programs be cut equally, and many analysts say that the nature of defense spending does make it very hard to cut that way.
Todd Harrison with the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments says some weapons systems are particularly tough to trim.

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