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Kicking the can down the road

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    Senate delays defense sequester cuts two months

  • Duration 3:43
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What -- able to agree on taxes but not spending cuts the bill heading to the house does not deal with the defense see Questar cuts.

Instead the -- delaying a decision.

On billions of dollars in spending cuts for two months so what does the department -- need to do between now and then.

As senior fellow at the center for advanced defense studies.

Colonel Tony Shaffer joins us now thank you for joining us bright -- early this morning we're having a long night right that's right at happy new year ahead and yes happy new year to UT but not so much -- -- -- our military members this delay is for two months.

109 billion dollars worth of across the board spending -- sentence.

Start striking the Pentagon in domestic agencies this week.

The cost of 24 billion divided between spending cuts and new revenues from rule changes on converting traditional.

Individual retirement accounts into Roth IRAs and it's getting into the weeds of it explained how this is going to affect first our military member.

Well first off military members -- -- any direct effect I think you'll see the Fed's -- employees.

This -- civil servants.

And contractors affected most correctly most directly.

Right now we're talking about a two -- kicking the can down the road with that said there was no clear path forward the Pentagon completely -- this off.

They were not prepared for anything relating to actually having to do the cuts.

They did not do what we call budget offsets talking about getting down the -- offsets through those things which you can take cuts on and not -- degradation of capability or operations.

And you can kick goes down McDonough wrote to some of the company -- they didn't do that.

And fundamentally Heather we still not seen a -- -- re organization of the Department of Defense since 1947.

Secretary -- defense -- put out this five point strategy.

I actually had our opinion pieces for Fox News on this -- outline the complete failure of the Pentagon to do that the Pentagon the President Obama called.

Ben Ghazi the result of sloppy thinking.

Heather we have sloppy thinking going on at -- -- right now not trying to figure out what's best to do regarding these cuts as well as how we make an effective defense.

Now military -- this is important to point out trying to advance from sequestration but the DOD budget -- yourself.

You -- you expect widespread furloughs and DOD civilians to pay for the military operation.

That's right I think this were again we're looking at actual cuts in capability.

No one thought this through no one figured out that -- which it should cut some of the construction costs of building military facilities are expanding military facilities.

Rather than looking at this because the losses 10% across the board.

That means -- 1010% across the board so -- with what they've got to do over these next two months.

Is get it right to -- -- figure out what needs to be done or these offsets can come from and actually do the hard things which they didn't do up until now.

And that's the big question what should be done first because this sequestration.

It calls for 500 billion in defense spending cuts over a decade.

That's about fifty billion annually which do you expect to come first what you think should come first.

Well you've got to look at high tech programs of what they're spending regard regarding research and development.

Right now we're way of ever body a -- -- will always be either but you gotta look at that.

And then you got to look at what we're doing operationally doesn't make sense to continue to have bases forward I know we went through this whole -- thing.

But frankly again this goes back to the of underpinnings of department defense that the the -- security act of 1947.

We want to -- war we need to restructure ready to do things which are effective not not expensive.

We continue to layer things is that nobody wants to be held accountable regarding actually making hard decisions to troops to streamline and with the current defense department for the point -- central.

Lieutenant colonel Tony Shaffer thank you so much for joining us this morning we appreciate your insight.

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