The Budget Control Act, passed last summer by both parties as a mechanism to force compromise on debt reduction, is now being used by politicians and the defense industry for political gain. Mitt Romney’s campaign has said that sequestration will “saddle the military with a trillion dollars in cuts, severely shrink our force structure, and impair our ability to meet and deter threats.” He places the blame for these cuts on the Obama administration, conveniently forgetting that Republicans voted for sequestration and ignoring the fact that sequestration would be avoidable if the GOP would be willing to compromise on revenue increases.

Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle agree that sequestration in its current form is flawed, but the argument has remained largely political. Rep. Adam Smith outlined the irony of the current conservative position on sequestration, saying they “ignored both their own role in creating sequestration in the first place and the fact that their stubborn resistance to any increase in revenues is the biggest reason why sequestration is even a possibility…

The bill, which may come up on the House floor the week of July 16, provides $519.2 billion in non-war funding, an increase of $1.1 billion over the fiscal year 2012 level and $3.1 billion above the President’s request. The bill also contains $88.5 billion for Overseas Contingency Operations (OCO), or war funding. This is a reduction of $26.6 billion compared to the previous year’s level, due to the end of the war in Iraq and a drawdown of forces in Afghanistan.