The catch, though, is that at least seven panel members need to agree to the final plan, and the DoD’s
budget makes up more than half of all federal discretionary spending. It is, in short, a big, fat target.
McKeon’s case is not aided by the fact that defense
hawks, once a strong base within the Republican party,
have become merely a vocal minority overtaken by fiscal conservatives who rose to office and to prominence
after the last election amid concerns about the burgeoning deficit and rising government spending. For
those fiscal hawks, no part of the federal budget — not
even the military’s accounts — is sacrosanct.
Their new status within their own party is not lost
on pro-defense lawmakers.
Sen. Lindsey O. Graham, R-S.C., a senior member of
the Senate Armed Services Committee, said there has
been a “political shift of the Reagan party that we need
to push back against.”
He acknowledged there are savings to be had in the
Pentagon’s sprawling budget. Military officials need to
get weapons costs under control, relying more on
fixed-price contracts and requiring contractors to
share the burden when programs exceed cost esti-
mates, Graham said. The military’s retirement system
and benefits, including Tricare health care co-pays,
also should be reformed, he said.
“I’m willing to do big things. I’m willing to do
things that will be controversial to make the
Department of Defense budget sustainable and more
businesslike,” Graham said Sept. 8 at a conference in
Washington held by the conservative think tanks the
American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy
Research and the Heritage Foundation. “But what I’m
not willing to do as a Ronald Reagan Republican is put
on the table cuts in defense that would say to the coun-
try, and the world at large, that defense is a secondary
concern in Washington.”
The efforts of lawmakers like Graham and McKeon
are hindered by their representation on the super com-
mittee itself. Of its 12 members, only Sen. Jon L. Kyl,
R-Ariz., a well-known advocate for missile defense and
nuclear modernization, could be considered a reliable
defense hawk.
Kyl has made it clear that he will not tolerate more
defense cuts. Breaking from other panel members’ calls
for bipartisan cooperation and compromise, Kyl
already has warned his fellow Republicans on the committee that he would leave the panel if the Pentagon’s
budget remains on the table.
“When we had our first meeting, the chairman
asked, ‘What do we think about defense spending?’”
Kyl recalled Sept. 8. “And I said, ‘I’m off of the committee if we’re going to talk about further [cuts to]
defense spending.’”
