Reid Proposes Plan to Replace Sequester Cuts with Money from Afghanistan, Iraq Wars

[rug]

By SARAH PARNASS (@WordsOfSarah) and SUNLEN MILLER (@sunlenmiller)
April 23, 2013

Nineteen months before the combat phase of the war in Afghanistan is set to end, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid suggested Congress take money allocated for that operation and use it to pay off sequester cuts.

With FAA furloughs causing airport delays and headaches across the nation, the Senate Majority Leader announced he intends to move this evening an anti-sequestration bill that would cancel the budget cuts for five months, paid for with what he said were war savings.

"I think we should do something about sequestration," Reid, D-Nev., said this afternoon. "We should do what was in one of the Ryan budgets; that is, use the Overseas Contingency Fund to delay the implementation of sequestration."

The Overseas Contingency Operation is the designation used in the Department of Defense budget for money used to fund the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. At the start of FY2013, $96.7 billion was allocated for OCO, including money for the State Department and USAID in Afghanistan and Pakistan. President Obama's proposed FY2014 budget does not yet give a number for OCO, because of delayed decisions about troop levels. The overall cap for OCO through 2021 was set in the 2013 budget at $450 billion.

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/reid-proposes-plan-replace-sequester-cuts-money-afghanistan/story?id=19025132

[GeorgeGist]

1. smoke and mirrors