Citizens outside ofWashington often accuse those inside the Beltway of living in their own world, and the upcoming budget request for fiscal 2013 is only going to prove them right. That is because while Congress-through failure last month by the so-called Super Committee to agree to any cuts to the deficit-has set in motion $600 billion more in reductions to defense spending over a decade, starting in January 2013. But the Pentagon is not going to acknowledge that reality in the budget request coming out in February. The reason: the Pentagon and the White House are nearly finished drafting a request that assumes those "sequestration" cuts will not happen, which was their operating assumption even as the Budget Control Act became law in August.
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