Pentagon on Sequestration: Absurdity Compounded

In a press briefing this week on the congressionally mandated budget cutting process known as sequestration, which will chop $600 billion from the Defense Department over the next decade if lawmakers can't agree on an alternative, Pentagon spokesman George Little peppered his comments with variations on the word absurd.

“We can't afford sequestration. We can't afford a lot in this country right now. We have to make some tough choices” Little said.

He then added, “But one thing we definitely can't choose to do as a nation or as a government is sacrifice our national security by triggering this rather absurd mechanism that was instituted to avoid absurdity.”

Asked if the Pentagon had started to plan on how to manage the automatic budget cuts, Little said, “Much of what we plan for in this building is for things that could actually happen. And this might actually happen, I guess. But we typically don't plan against absurdities, and that's what we're talking about here. -- (Crosstalk.) -- It is -- it is an absurdity –"

Alas, I think this absurdity will become a reality as long as no-new-taxes bully Grover Norquist continues to run the country.