Panetta defends plan on military budget cuts

WASHINGTON – Defense Secretary Leon Panetta is defending his department’s slimmed-down, $614 billion budget plan, telling senators that it’s time to step up and show they are serious about reducing the deficit.

In testimony prepared for a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing today, Panetta is warning lawmakers that budget cuts will hit all 50 states. But he says the reductions have been carefully planned and there is little room for changes.

The proposed defense budget for the year beginning Oct. 1 includes $525.4 billion in base spending and another $88.5 billion for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. The total is nearly $32 billion less than this year’s budget.

“It was this Congress that mandated, on a bi-partisan basis, that we reduce the defense budget, and we need your partnership to do this in a manner that preserves the strongest military in the world,” Panetta said in the written testimony, which was obtained by the Associated Press. “This will be a test of whether reducing the deficit is about talk or action.”

Defense officials have laid out plans to find about $260 billion in savings over the next five years, including moves to slash the size of the Army and Marine Corps, cut back on shipbuilding, and delay the purchase of some fighter jets and other weapons systems.

The plan also slashes war spending. Money for Iraq and Afghanistan will drop from $115 billion this year to $88.5 billion, with less than $3 billion spent for security in Iraq. It also cuts in half the amount spent on training and equipping Afghanistan’s security forces – a key element to the U.S. effort to gradually withdraw forces and transfer security responsibility to the Afghans.