Looming defense cuts worry Kaine, Virginians
On his tour of Virginia military installations this week, Sen. Tim Kaine says there’s been one recurring theme: the level of concern about the looming defense budget cuts.
“It’s very acute,” Kaine said Thursday during a stop at the Globe & Laurel Restaurant in North Stafford, where he lunched with the commander of the Wounded Warrior Regiment, then toured Marine Corps Base Quantico.
Kaine, a former Virginia governor who was elected to the U.S. Senate last fall, is a new member of the Armed Services Committee.
The state tour, which began at Navy sites in Norfolk and Newport News, was set up as an opportunity for him to get updated on the vast military presence in the commonwealth.
“But it has now morphed into a second reason that’s more urgent,” he said of the across-the-board $500 billion in defense cuts set to begin March 1 unless Congress and the president act. The process, known as sequestration, is a series of automatic cuts in the event more targeted spending reductions cannot be made.
“So, for the last three days, there’s been very specific and pointed discussion on how each part of the budget gets affected, as we continue down this path of budget irresponsibility,” Kaine told reporters at the restaurant near Boswell’s Corner.
“The immediate threat is that it will degrade national security,” he said, but the impact in Virginia is potentially huge because an estimated 90,000 Virginians who work in civilian defense jobs are facing 20 days of furloughs as their employers adjust to the cuts.
Kaine mentioned as an example a ship repair company in Norfolk that put 1,500 workers on notice this week that their jobs could be on the line because of sequestration.
The Marine Corps will see its share of reductions if the cuts go through. Marine Corps Commandant Gen. James F. Amos recently told the House Armed Services Committee that resources affect readiness, such as training.
“Training is really important. Training means if you need to do something, you’re ready,” Kaine said. “You scale back on training or ship maintenance, then at that moment you’re maybe 85 to 90 percent ready, but not 100 percent.”
Cutting money for training, “is a way to make the budget work, but it’s not a way to make sure war fighters have what they need to come home safely,” he said.
Kaine, who continues his tour at the Hunter Holmes McGuire VA Medical Center in Richmond this morning, said it’s not yet a foregone conclusion that the sequester will happen.
“Those who say it is inevitable are those who are playing the blame game in advance. Let’s spend our time doing something constructive. This is not something conceptually hard to solve.”
Lawmakers, he said, “are relying on gimmicks or sequester, as opposed to doing a normal budget process.”
Kaine’s words resonated at the Globe & Laurel, which caters to, among others, active duty and retired Marines and the civilian contractors who work for the Marine Corps.
Owner Rick Spooner, a retired Marine major, says the budget cuts would hurt his business and many others in the region.
Spooner said he regularly hears comments on the current budget impasse.
“We’re Americans. We love our country, but I haven’t found anyone recently that had anything good to say about our government. Some of us are very hurt, very discouraged and wish people who are able to cast their ballots would better educate themselves.”
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