DOD official: 2013 Pentagon budget won’t account for automatic cuts

“I think physically it would probably not be possible
for us to go back to the line-item level, which is how we do the budget, and
redo everything in two weeks, which is about how much time we have left,”
he said, according to reports
from the conference.

{mosads}The Pentagon is already preparing to cut $450 billion from
its budget over the next decade as a result of the debt-limit deal. The
automatic cuts from sequestration would tack as much as $600 billion onto the
amount that must be trimmed in defense spending.

As the supercommittee neared failure, the Pentagon indicated
that it wasn’t planning for the $600 billion cuts. The cuts wouldn’t take
effect until January 2013, and defense hawks in Congress have vowed to reverse
them.

The Pentagon is currently finishing a review of its spending
to decide how to apply the $450 billion in cuts.