Calming ‘sequesteria’

There were always two shells in the double-barreled shotgun aimed at the Defense Department. One was sequester. The other — the one the Pentagon was really worried about — was the continuing resolution that expires March 27.

Well, now, the Congress has just begun to unload one of the two barrels. Although sequester is still underway, the House has removed a big source of the Pentagon’s "sequesteria" by passing a real appropriations bill for the Department of Defense and the Department of Veterans Affairs. (The rest of government will have to make do with the continuing resolution, which the bill prolongs through the end of the fiscal year.)

The bill, from the chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, Harold Rogers, did not attempt to fix the sequester — as I predicted last week, that was too high a hurdle — but it does make it easier for the Pentagon to survive. In writing a full appropriations bill, Rogers gave the Obama administration pretty much all the money it asked for in its request for crucial operational accounts. The bill increases the funds for operations and maintenance by more than $10 billion above the FY 2012 (and, thus, the continuing resolution) level.

That doesn’t eliminate the sequester, but it raises the baseline from which sequester is measured for the accounts most directly affected. That gives some relief to the services, easing about 25 percent of the pain they see coming. And, who knows, if there is actually progress on the broader budget negotiations the president is lobbying for, the whole sequester thing itself might become meaningless.

That’s the other big takeaway since we moved into sequester-land last Friday. Everybody is suddenly making nice. The president is phoning the Hill, even talking to Republicans. And Barbara Mikulski, the new chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, wants to write a bill similar to the House legislation, perhaps providing real appropriations language for a few more agencies and departments, rather than just prolonging the continuing resolution for everyone but DOD and Veterans Affairs.

So the March 27 deadline that I argued was the real deal may go away quietly. Some kind of appropriations bill will pass before then, in all likelihood. And the Pentagon seems likely to get the flexibility and additional funds it needs to avoid some of the damage expected from sequester. That has not prevented the "doomsday drumbeat" from continuing at DOD, with sequester threatening everything from readiness to the Asian pivot, to nuclear strategy, to band concerts. But some politics die hard.

Gee, have we entered an era of peace and budgetary harmony? Not likely. Paul Ryan’s budget resolution for FY 2014 is coming next week; a Senate version from Patty Murray will follow. They will differ. And the Obama administration will send up its budget someday — rumor has it either March 25 or April 8. And "Debt Ceiling: The Second Sequel" will hit theaters this summer. Lots of targets if anybody wants to continue to fight.