Budget cuts: super committee bark might be worse than its bite.

• Author: Erwin, Sandra I.
• Position: Defense Insider - Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction - Brief article

The fate of the republic--if we are to believe the hype--soon will be in the hands of the 12-member Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction that must find $1.5 trillion in spending cuts.

House and Senate members of the "super committee" are gearing up for their first meeting. They will have until Nov. 23 to vote on a deficit-reduction proposal that would go to the full Congress before year's end.

For the Pentagon, the most dreaded outcome is deadlock. If the panel fails to agree to a comprehensive plan of spending cuts and revenues that reduces the national debt by $1.2 trillion, there will be across-the-board budget reductions, and half would come from defense. These automatic "sequester" cuts would be implemented beginning in 2013.

The Pentagon already is moving to cut $350 billion as part of the debt agreement that was signed last month. But the sequestering would push the total cuts to nearly a trillion dollars over 10 years. Defense already has pushed back, with Secretary Leon E. Panetta warning that the trigger...