After Congress passed a fiscal cliff
bill that would delay automatic cuts to defense spending, U. S.
Defense Secretary Leon Panetta on Wednesday voiced optimism for
finding a permanent way to avoid the 500-billion-dollar
sequestration, and urged Congress to do so.
"On behalf of the Department of Defense, I want to express our
thanks to the Democratic and Republican members of Congress who
voted to temporarily avert sequestration," Panetta said in a
statement. "Hopefully, this will allow additional time to develop a
balanced deficit reduction plan that would permanently prevent these
arbitrary cuts."
Congress passed legislation Tuesday delaying the sequestration
process by two months. Sequestration, included in the 2011 Budget
Control Act, would have automatically cut 500 billion dollars from
defense spending over 10 years on top of 487 billion in spending
reductions already identified over the same time frame.
Had Congress not acted, the Defense Department, along with other
federal agencies, would have been forced to take dramatic steps
which would have "severely impacted" civilian personnel and
disrupted the department's operation, Panetta said.
The defense secretary credited Congress with preventing the "
worst possible outcome" by delaying sequestration for two months,
but noted that the threat of sequestration continues.
"Unfortunately, the cloud of sequestration remains," Panetta
said. "The responsibility now is to eliminate it as a threat by
enacting balanced deficit reduction. Congress cannot continue to
just kick the can down the road."
Panetta said he hoped the Congress can work together to " prevent
sequestration once and for all" in the next two months.
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