Dempsey Maps Sequestration Cuts at Defense
June 19, 2012
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Martin Dempsey said Tuesday that automatic cuts to the Defense Department's budget resulting from the sequestration deal struck by the Obama administration and Congress would have to come from military operations, maintenance, training and modernization.
If lawmakers do not avert sequestration and the cuts take place next year, as scheduled, Dempsey still will have to pay the bill for the military's "overseas contingency operations" in Afghanistan and the Persian Gulf, he told attendees at a military leadership breakfast sponsored by Government Executive..
"If there's money taken out of the $88.5 billion that we say we need for OCO, I'm going to have to take money out of the base and invest it. You can't not pay those bills. So OCO will touch it, but the money's coming from some place, and that is the base," he said.