Panetta Thanks Congress for Suspending Deep Pentagon Spending Cuts - East Idaho News
News

Panetta Thanks Congress for Suspending Deep Pentagon Spending Cuts

  Published at

062212 LeonPanettaDOD?  SQUARESPACE CACHEVERSION=1357205816584Department of Defense Photo by Glenn Fawcett(WASHINGTON) — One person who breathed a particularly huge sigh of relief after Tuesday’s congressional compromise on the fiscal cliff was Defense Secretary Leon Panetta.

He had already braced the Pentagon to be ready for a series of deep budget cuts known as sequestration that would total around $500 billion over 10 years.  However, the bill passed by the House and Senate puts those spending reductions on hold for at least two months.

Panetta, who plans on retiring soon, issued a statement Wednesday expressing gratitude to lawmakers from both parties for putting a temporary halt to sequestration, adding, “Hopefully, this will allow additional time to develop a balanced deficit reduction plan that would permanently prevent these arbitrary cuts.”

For the past year, since Congress approved the budget cuts to help bring down the nation’s debt, Panetta has been on a campaign to get members of Congress to change their minds on sequestration, saying it “would have a devastating impact on the department.”

Panetta acknowledged that he “would have been required to send out a notice to our 800,000 civilian employees that they could be subject to furlough” if the fiscal cliff compromise had not been reached.

Copyright 2013 ABC News Radio

SUBMIT A CORRECTION