Pentagon Operations Would Get $10 Billion Under Proposal [View all]

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-03-05/pentagon-operations-would-get-10-billion-under-proposal.html


Pentagon Operations Would Get $10 Billion Under Proposal
By Laura Litvan - Mar 4, 2013 10:00 PM ET

House Republicans sought to ease the Pentagon’s pain from across-the-board spending cuts, proposing legislation that would shift $10 billion to train troops, maintain weapons and pay for operations.

The stopgap measure proposed yesterday to prevent a threatened government shutdown after March 27 would fund government programs at last year’s level minus the automatic cuts that took effect on March 1. Exceptions would be made to reorder funds for the Defense Department and free up money for the Veterans Affairs Department. Military pay is already exempt.

“This legislation will avoid a government shutdown on March 27th, prioritize DoD and veterans programs, and allow the Pentagon some leeway to do its best with the funding it has,” U.S. Representative Hal Rogers, a Kentucky Republican who leads the House Appropriations Committee, said in a statement.

While Republicans who control the House plan to pass the legislative package this week, Democrats said they will push for similar concessions to help domestic programs. That risks making the measure another casualty in the partisan fighting over budget-cutting. The process called sequestration imposes $85 billion in reductions on domestic and defense programs in the seven months remaining in the current fiscal year.