Defense Cuts: How Do You Buy 1.8 Submarines?

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.

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ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST: If you've been having nightmares about sequestration, you're not alone. Congress, the Pentagon, the defense industry - they're all having the same dreams. Sequestration is the jargon used to describe the 10 percent across the board spending cuts that could come in January?

NPR's Larry Abramson reports on the Beltway divide over how to deal with these looming cuts and the fears they inspire.

LARRY ABRAMSON, BYLINE: Sometimes people deal with their biggest fears through denial - they refuse to plan for the inevitable.

GEORGE LITTLE: We don't have any plan right now for sequestration.

(LAUGHTER)

ABRAMSON: George Little is press secretary for the Pentagon, perhaps the world's premier planning agency. But the Pentagon views the threat of a 10 percent budget cut like an invasion from Mars. It's too awful, too scary, too - what's what word?

LITTLE: We typically don't plan against absurdities.

ABRAMSON: Sequestration is an absurdity so terrible it was never supposed to happen. Why absurd? Because sequestration requires that all programs be cut equally. And many analysts say 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.

TODD HARRISON: You take, for example, your Virginia-class submarine for we're planning to buy two per year. If you have to cut back by 10 percent, you can't buy 1.8 subs.

ABRAMSON: There's someone else who believes Pentagon cuts are uber-scary. But Buck McKeon, the chair of the House Armed Services Committee, says it's best to confront our fears and talk about them.

REPRESENTATIVE BUCK MCKEON: I worry that the cavernous silence from the president will lead many to exit the industry or to walk away from capital investments that are in the best interest of our troops.

ABRAMSON: Actually, McKeon wants the White House to explain how it will manage defense cuts, hoping the administration will end up with the blame for job losses that many say will result from a smaller military. McKeon invited defense contractors to testify before Congress this past week, to share their anxieties over the coming sequestocalypse.

Pratt and Whitney CEO David Hess testified that, if the administration would only talk about how they will manage these cuts, he could at least manage his business.

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

ABRAMSON: The industry has been staging anti-sequestration rallies and releasing reports that claim a million people would lose their defense jobs if the cuts go forward. After lots of prodding, the Office of Management and Budget and the Pentagon have agreed to appear at a sequestration hearing next month. But both agencies have refused to discuss actual plans so far, and there's no reason to think that will change.

Some say this irrational fear of sequestration has made it impossible to embrace the only rational treatment in this Beltway psychodrama: looking for manageable cuts to defense.

Heather Hurlburt, of the National Security Network, says any cuts would follow years of spending growth.

HEATHER HURLBURT: This enormous department has grown by 50 percent over the last decade.

ABRAMSON: Hurlburt agrees sequestration would be a nightmare. But she says Congress is virtually guaranteeing the worst will happen by refusing to consider even limited cuts.

HURLBURT: There's been a lot of discussion about whether we might have a modest co-pay as part of military health care. And Congress has vigorously sort of acted to prevent any kind of discussion of cost-saving reforms in military health.

ABRAMSON: So there are two strategies for dealing with fear of defense sequestration: refuse to talk about it or talk and talk about how awful it will be. More research is needed to say which technique is most effective. But neither will cure the underlying disease: failure to agree on a deficit reduction package. Congress's clinical trial ends in January, when the sequestration nightmare becomes real.

Larry Abramson, NPR News.

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