"As we hand this [budget] off to the next administration… the sequester issue is still hanging around like a bad cold, it needs to be taken care of," McCord stated. "Our plans have been consistent and we’ll talk about that across several years, but our plans aren’t going to work if we can’t get the sequester problem solved and get back up to the level of resources that we need to keep this progress going."
Earlier on Tuesday, President Barack Obama sent his $4.1 trillion budget proposal to the US Congress. The budget includes a proposed $582.7 billion in discretionary budget authority to fund the Department of Defense.
Automatic budget cuts known as sequestration were agreed to in 2011 by President Barack Obama and the Republican-controlled Congress led by Congressman Paul Ryan, who later went on to become the US House Speaker.
The proposed budget portion for the US military would quadruple last year’s request for the European Reassurance Initiative (ERI) to $3.4 billion in a bid to reassure NATO allies against Russia and also requests some $145.8 million to support Israel.
