In his 2011 budget, Ryan supported Defense Secretary Robert Gates’s proposal to save $178 billion over five years in reductions and efficiencies, as well as the Obama administration’s plan for a smaller increase in spending, year over year. Ryan’s proposal closely paralleled the President’s request, but in doing so, enflamed some members of his own party. Anticipating the details of the forthcoming proposal, 29 members of the House Armed Services Committee, led by Chairman Buck McKeon, sent a letter to Speaker Boehner requesting a $7 billion increase above the President’s request.

A senior Pentagon official describes the reaction of Pentagon analysts upon discovering that the cost of the B61 Life Extension Program could be $10 billion, $4 billion more than the National Nuclear Security Administration’s latest estimate.

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.