Military rethinking leads to some hard choices

The sequester may turn out to be a good thing, at least when it comes to some Pentagon programs.

It is forcing the military services to make hard choices they have avoided even thinking about while the money freely flowed to the Defense Department.

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The United States was at war and whatever programs the services called necessary got funded, with few questions and little oversight. Pentagon spending on the Afghan and Iraq wars totaled about $1.3 trillion, while an additional $5.2 trillion paid for Defense’s “base budget.”

In 2001, the base budget was supposed to support two wars, but the George W. Bush White House set up supplemental appropriations for the fighting, a practice followed when President Obama took office. Still, the base budget rose about $10 billion or more most years from 2002 to 2012.

Billions of dollars were wasted on unsuccessful procurement programs and other overruns for ships, aircraft and other weapons systems, and space vehicles. And some good programs were begun, costing tens and even hundreds of millions of dollars that produced marginal results or are now just unaffordable.

Military rethinking about some personnel and family-related programs came up Wednesday at a hearing before a House Armed Services sub-committee on military personnel. The topic: fiscal 2013 continuing resolution and sequestration.

Take the military services’ program to offer tuition assistance to active service and National Guard personnel for courses during off-duty hours. On March 5, Defense Comptroller Robert Hale asked the services to “consider significant reductions in funding new tuition assistance applicants . . . for the duration of the current fiscal situation.”

With more than $500 million a year, the Army, Air Force and Marines, plus the National Guard, pay tuition of up to $250 a semester hour, and up to $4,500 a year for an individual’s off-duty studies. The Navy limit is $4,000.

It’s been a popular program

Army Lt. Gen. Howard B. Bromberg told the panel his service had stopped new applications, having spent $200 million so far in fiscal 2013. The Army had $383 million budgeted.

In the future, Bromberg added, “I think we can probably take at least $115 million in savings in this program and still turn some back on, but probably not to the same extent that we have it today.”

Lt. Gen. Darrell D. Jones, Air Force deputy chief of staff for manpower, said the service had about 115,000 participants. The program was cut off before it used up this year’s $198 million.

“We’re going to reevaluate it” for next year, Jones said, but adding, “realistically we’re going to have to adjust the program to lessen the budgetary impact on our Air Force.”

Others have begun to lobby.

Wallace E. Boston, president of American Public Education, whose company has just reported that 37 percent of its students are from the military, said in a statement that his firm wants “to make sure that you are aware of the other options you have for financing your education so that you can make a decision that is right for you and your family.”