Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said Thursday he has, “ordered the Pentagon to begin planning now for a triple crisis facing the government this March,” telling reporters it was a “perfect storm” that would leave the military with a worst-case outcome: a “hollow force.” Panetta and the nation’s top uniformed officer, Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Martin Dempsey, said in a briefing that March’s potential across-the-board budget cuts, the expiration of the continuing spending resolution that now pays for the government and the potential that the U.S. could default on its debt all were too serious not to begin immediate preparations. Panetta said the Pentagon would, “pull back on military maintenance that wasn’t critical to immediate missions, freeze civilian hiring, stop issuing certain contracts and take “other steps” against the possibility of a roughly $45 billion budget across-the-board spending cut that could take effect in March, unless Congress intervenes.” Per Politico, “Congress’s decision to push back that cut, but not to void it altogether, is what has made Panetta and Dempsey pessimistic that lawmakers would be able to resolve March’s triple crisis a timely fashion.”
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Jan 2013
