Pentagon Not As Optimistic as GOP over Sequestration Roll Back

Pentagon Not As Optimistic as GOP over Sequestration Roll Back
Military.com
Kris Osborn
November 6, 2014

Republican leaders on Capitol Hill expect the defense portion of sequestration to be incrementally rolled back once the new Congress comes to session in 2015 even though Pentagon officials said Wednesday that they aren't so confident.

Sequestration is slated to resume in 2015, but Congressional sources said they expect the Republicans to use their new majority in the Senate to lessen the burden on the military.

"What you will probably see is a consensus among Republicans that we really need to roll back sequestration for defense. I think there will be a whole new momentum to take the defense portion of sequestration off the table. Once you do that, everything else changes," the source said.

However, Frank Kendall, the Pentagon's top acquisition official, said Wednesday morning at a speech in Washington D.C. that he would be "quite surprised" if Congress would come to a consensus to protect the Defense Department from sequestration.

There's also the question of whether President Obama would support it. The president could veto a deal and Obama has said he would only support a repeal of sequestration if it was balanced on defense and non-defense programs.
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