Anyone following the House of Representatives' recent debate over defense spending could be forgiven for thinking defense has fallen off the debt-negotiation table. House members passed a spending bill last week adding $17 billion to last year's DOD budget and rejecting amendments to bring it in line with inflation. But such obstinance threatens to put Congress behind the curve when it comes to finding the $400 billion Obama wants trimmed from the DOD budget.

Calls for cuts are emerging even within the Pentagon, and square in their sights is a group of new weapons that could put DOD in the poorhouse. For example, in the past year the Defense Department announced plans to begin developing a replacement for the Navy's SSBN ballistic missile submarine, the SSBN(X), and a “next-generati.png” bomber aircraft to replace the Air Force's B-52, B-1, and B-2 planes, which drop both nuclear and conventional bombs.

These weapons don't come cheap. The SSBN(X) program is projected to cost around $100 billion cradle to grave, more than the Navy's entire shipbuilding budget over the next five years. The bomber is projected to cost at least $55 billion over its lifetime, including development.

It's clear that these kinds of figures are not feasible in today's fiscal environment. In fact, OMB canceled a bomber program just last year, criticizing the gold-plated design as unaffordable and pointing out that the current fleet was performing well and could meet foreseeable challenges with ongoing upgrades. It also cited Congressional Budget Office warnings that DOD's weapons acquisition program, including the future bomber fleet, was in danger of breaking the military's bank.

Though the Pentagon says it is committed to the new programs, critics from some unlikely places are beginning to emerge. This week, Joint Chiefs Vice Chair Gen. James Cartwright – the military's second highest-ranking officer – said the new bomber still ran the risk of breaking the bank with its “exquisite” technologies. He also suggested cutting or delaying development of new aircraft carriers, which cost $15 to $20 billion each.

Though major weapons systems are generally characterized at their inception as all-or-nothing propositions, Cartwright's comments remind us that options for savings exist. For example, he repeated analysts' suggestions to ditch the SSBN(X) in favor of redesigning the current Virginia-class submarines, cutting the price roughly in half from $5 to $7 billion per sub to $3.5 billion. Simply waiting is another real option: Deferring development of costly next generation weapons until we really need them saves money by enabling us to make the most of what we've got while we hone future weapon designs.

A hint of where such ideas might run aground can be found in the defense appropriations bill passed by the House last Friday. The chamber approved an amendment that would prevent the military from retiring any B-1 bombers, which the Air Force says will save money. The amendment was sponsored by several representatives of the areas surrounding Dyess Air Force base in west Texas where the bombers are based, including Republicans Randy Neugebauer and Mac Thornberry.

This follows on the heels of years of successful fighting by Democratic Senators in North Dakota to reduce the number of B-52s DOD wanted to retire. Similarly lawmakers on both sides of the aisle have fought any efforts to reduce aircraft carrier fleet from the current stable of eleven.

When it comes to defense spending, Congress has always wanted to have its cake and eat it too, and until now it largely has. But those days are drawing to a close. Those on Capitol Hill and northern Virginia are going to have to make some hard decisions in the months ahead, and that's going to mean settling for less icing.

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TCS Quote of the Week:

“You can't blame the survival of these programs on just Democrats or Republicans, it's both. But if we can't cut small programs worth millions of dollars that benefit a few, how are we going to make serious cuts and get this country on the right track?”

– Representative Jeff Flake (R-AZ), who has proposed cutting several costly subsidies and programs. The New York Times