Wielding the sequester knife: ‘There is no manual’
One week. That’s how long we’ve got until the sequester, until the cuts start happening.
Ashton Carter is the Deputy Secretary of Defense, the guy whose job it is to run the Pentagon day-to-day and find the $46 billion or so the military’s got to cut. He said the department is ready to “execute sequester,” but he feels it’s unfortunate the way it’s being done.
“There is no manual; I don’t think anyone’s ever done anything this way — and for a very good reason, which is it’s a really dumb way to do things,” Carter said. “We’ve cut our budget before — we did last year — but we didn’t do it the sequester way. We had a chance to do it strategically and to ask the right question, which is: What does the country need?”
He said the uncertainty from the sequester will have an effect on individuals serving in the military.
“It certainly plays out on morale, it plays out on their family, and very worryingly to me, it will inevitably play out on their willingness to stay in,” he said.
Carter also warned that defense subcontractors who don’t have the financial resources to survive the cuts might not want to do business with the U.S. government anymore, because it’ll be an unreliable customer.
And furthermore, he said: “You have to remember, the whole world is watching this. Our friends are watching it, our allies are watching it — and our enemies are watching it as well. And that too causes lasting reputational embarrassment.
There’s a lot happening in the world. Through it all, Marketplace is here for you.
You rely on Marketplace to break down the world’s events and tell you how it affects you in a fact-based, approachable way. We rely on your financial support to keep making that possible.
Your donation today powers the independent journalism that you rely on. For just $5/month, you can help sustain Marketplace so we can keep reporting on the things that matter to you.
