WASHINGTON \u2013 A visibly frustrated Gen. Paul Selva, vice-chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, called for Congress to pass a budget before the end of the month, even if it is simply a return to what the Pentagon asked for at the start of fiscal year 2017.
In recent weeks, there has been a growing sense that an extended CR is the likely maneuver, at least for a short period of time \u2013 but military leadership has been vocal that extending the measure through the end of the fiscal year would be disastrous for Pentagon readiness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
On Thursday, Selva also raised concerns that short-term impacts of the budget crunch will have long-term effects on major programs. As an example, he held up the idea of a new aircraft carrier, predicting that in a few years he will be on the Hill being forced to testify about why such a program is hundreds of millions of dollars over budget.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“And you\u2019ll look at me quizzically when I say the first reason that\u2019s true is because we had to lay off all the people who know how to build aircraft carriers for four months because we didn\u2019t have the money to continue procurement to build the damn aircraft carrier,” Selva said. “Or something like that. And you\u2019ll say that can\u2019t possibly be true. But it is, because it is the law.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Selva was careful to separate between the authorizing committees, who he described as “quite magnanimous,” and the appropriations committees that are not funding those requests. And indeed, the Pentagon has received strong vocal support from top authorizers such as Senate Armed Services Chairman John McCain, R-Ariz., and his counterpart in the House Armed Services Committee, Mac Thornberry of Texas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As recently as last week\u00a0McCain, in frustration,\u00a0cut off a\u00a0reporter who asked him about the effects of a full-year CR, repeating several times:\u00a0“We are not going to do a CR!”<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n
However, Rep. Adam Smith, D-Wa., the ranking member on the HASC, sounded pessimistic last week when asked about the possibility of getting a budget deal done before the end of the month.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Selva made it clear that in his mind, partisanship, both on the Hill and in broader American society, is creating a smokescreen that misses the danger of not having a full budget for the Pentagon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“it doesn\u2019t matter who you voted for. \u2026 We have the Congress we elected,” Selva said. “If mom-and-pop public don\u2019t get a little bit excited about the fact we still don\u2019t have a budget, we might have an esoteric argument about whose political position is a little more right than somebody else\u2019s political position that is a little more left, [but] then we\u2019re missing the point.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Joe Gould in Washington contributed to this report<\/i><\/p>\n\n\n\n
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The vice-chief sees a deadline looming, and he doesn’t like it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":59440,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-noindex":"","_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-nofollow":"","_yoast_wpseo_canonical":"","_acf":"","_yoast_wpseo_primary_category":8,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_smg_distribution_targets":{"2":{"categories":["pentagon-congress","news"],"primary_category":"pentagon-congress"},"4":{"categories":["pentagon-congress","news"],"primary_category":"pentagon-congress"}}},"categories":[44,8,11,48],"tags":[],"coauthors":[3378],"class_list":["post-54340","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-budget","category-congress","category-global","category-the-americas"],"acf":{"subheadline":"","legacy_arc_id":"ZC7BK7EMXZHCNHECA57WO63SCA","arc_canonical_url":"\/congress\/2017\/04\/13\/frustrated-selva-to-congress-give-us-a-budget\/","remove_feature_photo":false,"is_sponsored":false,"subtype":"","redirect_url":"","disable_inline_ads":false,"native_logo_pretext":"Presented By:"},"yoast_head":"\n