Democrats sound alarm over ‘indiscriminate’ Pentagon cuts

Democrats across the Capitol were outraged Thursday at news that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has ordered senior Pentagon and military leaders to plan 8 percent cuts from the defense budget in each of the next five years.

Republicans, who traditionally support robust defense spending, took the plans in stride, despite GOP lawmakers wanting to add $100 billion to the annual defense spending bill. Any cuts that impact districts where ships or arms are produced would likely put the Pentagon on a collision course with Congress.

The cuts, ordered in a Tuesday memo, would seek to shave off $50 billion from Defense Department coffers in the next fiscal year in a dramatic realignment of defense spending to fund President Trump’s priorities, including an Iron Dome-like missile defense system for the U.S. and beefed up border security.

Democrats say the effort is a sham that will not only fail to save taxpayers money, but also undermine America’s defense capabilities in an increasingly hostile world.

“These types of hasty, indiscriminate budget cuts would betray our military forces and their families and make America less safe,” Senate Armed Services Committee ranking member Jack Reed (D-R.I.) said in a statement.

“I’m all for cutting programs that don’t work, but this proposal is deeply misguided. Secretary Hegseth’s rushed, arbitrary strategy would have negative impacts on our security, economy, and industrial base.”

Senate Armed Services Committee Chair Roger Wicker (R-Miss.), however, said the Pentagon effort is simply the new administration reviewing the entire budget.

“This process will enable the Secretary to offset needless and distracting programs – such as those focused on climate change and [diversity, equity and inclusion] – and direct focus on important warfighting priorities shared by the Congress,” Wicker said in a statement, adding that the Biden administration ran a similar review for the fiscal 2022 budget.

Wicker noted that he has spoken with Trump repeatedly and that "he intends to deliver a desperately needed military rebuild and Pentagon reform agenda.”

In the memo, obtained by The Hill, Hegseth outlines cuts to military commands in Europe and the Middle East, but preserves or boosts spending for 17 priority areas that appear to indicate a shift to defense issues closer to the U.S. homeland. They include border security, cybersecurity, nuclear modernization, submarines, drones and “combating transnational criminal organizations in the Western Hemisphere.”

“President Trump’s charge to DoD is clear: achieve Peace through Strength,” Hegseth writes in the memo. “The time for preparation is over — we must act urgently to revive the warrior ethos, rebuild our military, and reestablish deterrence. Our budget will resource the fighting force we need, cease unnecessary defense spending, reject excessive bureaucracy, and drive actionable reform including progress on the audit.”

The funding shift puts the Trump administration at odds with Congress, where Republicans had planned to increase the Pentagon’s $850 billion budget by $100 billion — part of a package meant to enact Trump’s wider agenda.

Should the administration implement an annual 8 percent cut over the next five years, that will add up to roughly $300 billion less in military spending through 2030.

The sheer size of the cuts, initiated by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency — which has sought to gut federal agencies under the guise of rooting out government waste and inefficiency — has unnerved lawmakers.

“As a former National Security Council adviser during Trump’s first administration and 25-year Army veteran, I have no doubt the sweeping, proposed cuts to the Pentagon would threaten U.S. national security and weaken our military readiness,” Rep. Eugene Vindman (D-Va.) said Thursday.

“At a time when China, Russia, and Iran pose serious threats, we need strength not weakness,” he continued. “We need to bolster our military, not hollow it out.”

Rep. John Garamendi (Calif.), the top Democrat on the Armed Services Committee’s subpanel on military readiness, delivered a similar warning. He cast Hegseth’s cost-cutting efforts as a ruse designed to shift money to Trump’s favored policies, to include tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans.

“If they were serious about cutting waste, they wouldn’t be diverting military resources to illegally conduct deportation flights at a higher cost to the taxpayer,” Garamendi said in an email. “If they were serious about executing oversight, they wouldn’t exempt $1,500,000,000,000 in nuclear modernization costs, particularly when the modernization for land-based missiles has already triggered mandatory reviews for egregious overruns.”

Garamendi said he welcomes any campaign to make the Pentagon more efficient and combat price-gouging by defense contractors.

“Unfortunately,” he added, “it is clear that this administration cares more about imposing their radical political agenda and lining the pockets of their billionaire buddies, than it does about protecting the American taxpayer and our national security.”

Republicans, meanwhile, had little to say on the proposed cuts, while some were supportive.

Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.) said he wholeheartedly backs cuts at the Pentagon, including a staff downsizing.

“I wouldn't be against them taking it from a Pentagon to a Trigon. Cut a couple sides off of it,” he told reporters.

Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) also defended the plans.

“I've been saying for quite some time, what we spend defense money on is more important than exactly how much we do,” he said.

“I'm far more concerned about restructuring our defense spending so we get the most bang for the buck, and really focus on protecting our war fighters and making sure that we defend this nation,” he added.

But Capitol Hill holds broad consensus that boosted defense budgets are necessary to deter threats posed by China and Russia, among other adversaries, making Trump’s proposal sure to face internal resistance.

And unlike agencies such as the U.S. Agency for International Development, where Trump has sought to slash funding, the Pentagon’s budget is backed by powerful lobbyists, along with lawmakers on both sides of the aisle whose districts rely on weapons manufacturing.

If enacted, the proposed reductions would be the most severe effort to curtail Pentagon spending since 2013, when congressionally mandated budget cuts known as sequestration took effect. Over time, the cuts were seen by both sides of the aisle as politically unpopular and had draining effects on force readiness.

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