Smith is doubtful that another hearing about the effects of the cuts would accomplish much. Smith: Another sequester hearing?

Democratic Rep. Adam Smith has a message for House Republicans: Stop talking about sequestration and start doing something about it.

Smith, from Washington, is the ranking Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee, and he’s telling the chairman — Republican Buck McKeon of California — he’s doubtful another hearing about the effects of next year’s across-the-board budget cuts would accomplish much.


“I share the view that informing the American people of sequestration’s harmful effects may be useful in pushing Congress to fix the problem it created, but I fear that after our long series of hearings on this subject we have reached the point of diminishing returns,” Smith said in a letter to McKeon. “At this late stage, we should be ardently working to reach solutions, rather than allowing ourselves to repeatedly bemoan the problem or kick the can down the road for another year or two.”

McKeon fired back in a letter of his own Wednesday. “I believe sequestration is the most important topic confronting the committee and, given that this is the last full committee hearing for nearly two months, I feel strongly that we should continue to provide oversight on the activities of the Department of Defense as it relates to this issue,” he wrote.

On Thursday, the committee is scheduled to have its fifth hearing on the issue since the Budget Control Act was passed in August 2011.

During the same time, the committee has not held a single public hearing on the sexual abuse scandal that has rocked Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio, though members have been briefed on it.

Meanwhile, the Senate Armed Services Committee has not held any hearings solely on sequestration. That isn’t to say the subject doesn’t come up in hearings, but far less time has been devoted to it.

McKeon says he has taken Smith’s suggestion to heart about the need to focus on solutions, but adds that many of the solutions available to Congress are outside of the jurisdiction of the House Armed Services Committee.

McKeon’s spokesman, Claude Chafin, said the goal for Thursday’s hearing is to get more details on how the Pentagon is planning for sequestration after last week’s report from the White House Office of Management and Budget provided so little detail.

“Given how thin that report was, the committee wants more details,” he said.

On Friday, OMB submitted a 394-page report to Congress that offered little new on the automatic budget cuts, but did confirm in painstaking detail which budget accounts are subject to cuts.

For instance, the report noted, there would be a 9.4 percent cut to most defense programs.

“We’ve heard for a year that once DoD got into the fall, they’d have to do some planning for sequestration. The question for tomorrow is: How are you planning, but also what does that planning tell us about the impacts of sequestration?” Chafin said.

Pentagon acquisition chief Frank Kendall told a Senate Aerospace Caucus breakfast on Wednesday the Pentagon is not taking steps in anticipation of sequestration.

By preparing now, the Pentagon runs the risk of building inefficiencies into its plans to accommodate sequestration, only to have to undo them later, Kendall said.

Under the Budget Control Act, sequestration leaves the Pentagon with little choice about to implement it.

“If we get flexibility, we would have to make some last-minute decisions, but it is my understanding that we would not have that flexibility,” Kendall said.

At Thursday’s hearing, Pentagon comptroller Robert Hale will testify, along with the vice chiefs from the Army, Navy and Air Force, and the assistant commandant of the Marine Corps.

“I hope our witnesses will be prepared on Thursday to shed more light on the activities being undertaken by the military departments to prepare the necessary guidance and strategy to implement the law if required,” McKeon said in his letter.

There are opportunity costs associated with devoting all of this time to sequestration, said Todd Harrison, a budget analyst at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments.

Pentagon planners have to spend their time worrying about it rather than performing their other oversight roles like trying to get the Pentagon to be able to pass an audit or plan the next budget, which is due in February, Harrison said.

And you have reporters chasing the sequestration story, which means less time covering other national security issues.

“Sequestration is sucking all of the oxygen out of Washington,” Harrison said. “Until sequestration gets resolved, nothing else matters in the budget.”

This article first appeared on POLITICO Pro at 3:50 p.m. on September 19, 2012.