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Captain Picard
我是老鳥
9652 Posts |
 Posted - 11/26/2011 : 17:16:23
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果然，眾議院超級委員會未能達成降低赤字規模的協議，所以民主黨版的刪減中央預算方案即將啟動。其中，美國國防部是最大苦主，貌似一半的刪減額度都來自國防預算，而且這個數字比先前10年4500億美元更大得多。
只不過，看到這數字不禁令人倒抽一口氣，FY2013就要砍掉$472billion！？感覺民主黨在亂搞。共和黨已經揚言要在眾議院立法保障美國國防預算不受刪減。
美國國防部似乎可以用預算名目（把錢從基地預算移到戰爭預算）來保住經費。
http://www.defensenews.com/story.php?i=8328093&c=AME&s=TOP
U.S. 'Supercommittee' Announces Failure; Stage Set for Defense Debate
By KATE BRANNEN
Published: 21 Nov 2011 17:34
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Even before the so-called congressional supercommittee announced Nov. 21 that it had failed to identify $1.2 trillion to reduce the federal deficit, defense hawks on Capitol Hill announced their intention to introduce legislation that would roll back the resulting defense cuts.
Joint Deficit Reduction Committee co-chair Sen. Patty Murray and co-chair Rep. Jeb Hensarling announced the panel's failure on Nov. 21, two days before the deadline for a deal. (Alex Wong / Getty Images)
"I will be introducing legislation in the coming days to prevent cuts that will do catastrophic damage to our men and women in uniform and our national security," House Armed Services Committee Chairman Rep. Buck McKeon, R-Calif., said in a statement to reporters.
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His staff emailed the statement at 3 p.m., two hours before the supercommittee co-chairs announced the panel's failure.
McKeon is not alone. Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., and other members of Congress say they too would work quickly to roll back the automatic spending cuts that would hit the Pentagon particularly hard.
"We are now working on a plan to minimize the impact of the sequester on the Department of Defense and to ensure that any cuts do not leave us with a hollow military," McCain said.
The White House has also said the defense cuts under sequestration go too far.
"We made clear that the cuts in the sequester are not the best approach to achieving the kind of deficit reduction that we need, and that the defense cuts are much deeper than we think are wise," White House spokesman Jay Carney said Nov. 21.
However, with the supercommittee failure being just the latest stalemate on Capitol Hill, many are wondering how a politically polarized Congress is going to agree to legislation that would alter the current law.
The Budget Control Act, signed into law in August, created the special congressional committee made up of six Democrats and six Republicans, three from the House and three from the Senate. The committee was charged with finding $1.2 trillion to reduce the country's debt, either through changing entitlements, cutting spending or raising revenues.
The committee had until Nov. 23 to vote on a plan, but with no plan in sight, supercommittee co-chairs Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., and Rep. Jeb Hensarling, R-Texas, announced the panel's failure.
"After months of hard work and intense deliberations, we have come to the conclusion today that it will not be possible to make any bipartisan agreement available to the public before the committee's deadline," their statement read.
To push the two political parties toward compromise, the Budget Control Act included a trigger mechanism of automatic spending cuts that would be pulled if the committee failed. Now that the supercommittee has officially failed, the trigger is considered pulled. However, the first sequestration does not happen until Jan. 2, 2013, leaving Congress and the president a year to respond.
"Congress could still act and has plenty of time to act," Carney said during a White House press conference.
Called "sequestration" by budgeteers and the "doomsday mechanism" by Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, the trigger language essentially said that if the committee could not come up with a $1.2 trillion plan, automatic spending cuts would do it for them. Half of the required cuts would come from budget function 050, or national defense, a category that's about 96 percent DoD funding.
However, a handful of defense-related accounts are exempt, such as veterans programs, and some DoD health care and retirement funds. War-spending bills, such as those used to fund operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, are also exempt.
This provides the Pentagon a bit of a loophole, Todd Harrison, an analyst at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, said. With this exemption, the Defense Department could move things from the base budget into the war budget, which remains well over $100 billion a year, in order to get around the cap, Harrison said.
Senate defense appropriators and authorizers have already begun this practice to a small degree with the 2012 defense bills.
"I think we're likely to see that again in 2013, so that will, in effect, soften the decline in defense spending, if they use that outlet," Harrison said.
The law also gives the president the option to exempt military pay from the spending cuts.
If sequestration is not rolled back, the defense base budget in 2013 would be cut to approximately $472 billion, according to analysis by the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments.
In its 2012 budget request, submitted in February, the Pentagon projected a budget for 2013 of $571 billion. This was long before the Budget Control Act was passed in August and even before the Pentagon received its final funding level for 2011, which was roughly $530 billion.
Last week, Panetta outlined the impact of sequestration in 2013 and beyond, saying the cuts would be devastating for the Defense Department. In a letter to lawmakers, Panetta said he objected to the level of cuts, but also the inflexibility with which they are administered.
The law, as currently written, dictates that sequester cuts must be applied in equal percentages to each "program, project, and activity."
"Such a large cut, applied in this indiscriminate manner, would render most of our ship and construction projects unexecutable - you cannot buy three quarters of a ship or a building - and seriously damage other modernization efforts," Panetta said.
At the very least, it is expected the Pentagon will seek flexibility from Congress in how it administers the sequestration cuts.
In the meantime, these issues promise to dominate a long political campaign season leading up to the 2012 elections.
As the political drama plays out, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and the Pentagon have to present their budget for 2013 in early February.
OMB has two choices: It can send over a budget in February that assumes the trigger is pulled or it can ignore the trigger and send over a budget that doesn't reflect sequestration and therefore can't be taken entirely seriously, Mackenzie Eaglen, a research fellow at the Heritage Foundation, said.
Either way, "You don't really move the defense bills and you continue the wild ride of the last two years of halting stops and starts of continuing resolutions," she said.
http://www.wellcreate.com/gold.aspx?aid=5389
美國會超級委員會未達成減赤協定-2011/11/22 13:52:38
From：路透 Author： Hit Rate：30
* 超級委員會聯席主席承認失敗 * 主權債務疑慮打壓市場 * 國會可能就支出和稅收問題進一步攤牌美國國會議員週一放棄試圖遏制該國債務膨脹的努力,表明華盛頓在2013年之前可能無法消除圍繞稅收和支出問題的分歧. 國會12人"超級委員會"中的共和黨與民主黨議員表示,他們未能消除巨大分歧,難以在最後期限以前制定計劃,在未來10年中把美國赤字規模降低1.2萬億(兆)美元. "在幾個月的艱苦努力與深入思考之後,我們今日得出結論,那就是在最後期限之前不可能拿出任何獲得兩黨同意的減赤協議."該委員會聯席主席,共和黨眾議院Jeb Hensarling和民主黨參議員Patty Murray在聲明中稱. 該聲明不太可能導致信用評級機構調降美國債信評級,因為超級委員會任務失敗後,美國將會啟動自動縮減支出的計畫. 委員會一直到2100GMT美國市場收盤後才正式宣佈努力失敗,但美國股市已經觸及一個月低點,因市場擔心歐洲和美國債務問題失控. 委員會的失敗意味著,未來一年在稅收和支出方面都存在不確定性,這可能進一步挫傷投資者. 未來數周,國會或將再搞一次邊緣政策,因民主黨竭力要求延長經濟刺激措施,例如工資稅減稅和增加失業補貼,這些措施將於今年年底到期. 共和黨發誓不讓自動削減開支舉措觸及軍費,亦試圖在2012年底前將富裕階層稅率鎖定在較低水準. 眾議院軍事委員會負責人、共和黨眾議員Buck McKeon甚至等不及超級委員會被正式宣告失敗,就宣稱將提議立法阻止裁減軍費支出的措施生效. 不過,在聽證中他不大可能獲得民主黨人的支持.而民主黨人尤為重視的醫療和退休福利專案基本上都不涉及減支. 任何削弱減赤力度的舉措都可能使評級機構調降美國主權債信評級. 隨著議員的關注點轉向2012年11月的總統選舉和國會選舉,他們也變得更加不願意妥協. 奧巴馬總統有意與超級委員會的談判保持距離,而只是強調受到共和黨人阻撓的增加就業計畫.助理認為,奧巴馬總統將會利用超級委員會失敗的事實,在2012年謀求連任的競選中把共和黨人渲染成為蓄意阻撓者的形象.
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天佑吾「王」！ |
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關於美國國防預算刪減
