WASHINGTON — If politicians here fail to reach agreement in achieving $1.2 trillion in deficit-reduction savings by Thanksgiving, Colorado Springs stands to lose big.
The city, heavily dependent on an economic churn of military and defense contracting, undoubtedly faces gigantic cuts to those areas.
Even if the six Republicans and six Democrats toiling mostly in secret on a deficit-reduction plan — which can include raising taxes — come to an agreement by the fast-approaching deadline, defense is a likely loser.
And if they fail to reach an accord — and many predict that is a distinct possibility — a blunt “sequester” kicks in that would pare $600 billion from defense and $600 billion from domestic spending.
“Clearly, if that happens, all bets are off, not just here, but in terms of major (defense) personnel cuts,” said Brian Binn, president of the military-affairs division of the Greater Colorado Springs Chamber of Commerce.
Roughly 73,000 people work at Colorado Springs-area military installations and defense contractors, and the chamber estimates the economic impact for the area at about $6.5 billion.
In 10 years, dollars awarded to defense contractors in El Paso County alone have swollen from $792 million in 2000 to more than $3 billion in 2010.
“If there is no agreement with the supercommittee, I agree with (Defense Secretary) Leon Panetta: This would be a doomsday mechanism,” said Rep. Doug Lamborn, who represents Colorado Springs. “It has ominous portents for the future.”
For Lamborn, a third-term Republican, all this poses a political problem.
Lamborn, who has been lauded a half-dozen times by conservative groups for being a “friend of the taxpayer,” is finding himself in the fight for his life to preserve the pricey — yet sacred — federal line item in his district.
In the past several months, Lamborn has lobbied more than usual: bending the ears of GOP supercommittee members, reaching out to local residents and employees, and trying to assure the contractors in his district — including Boeing and Lockheed Martin — that he is fighting for their cause.
Yet that effort will probably run squarely into another of his ardent philosophies: no new taxes.
“If this poses choices over tax increases versus defense cuts, that’s going to put me, as a conservative, in a tough spot,” Lamborn said. “I can’t see major defense cuts to our country. We’re starting to imperil the vital defensive capabilities. . . . But I don’t want higher taxes, either.”
Beyond economic impact for his voters, Lamborn has a personal stake in this too.
For his 2012 re-election campaign, he has collected roughly $15,000 in campaign contributions from political action committees affiliated with defense contractors, including Boeing and Northrop Grumman.
“I’m speaking on panels, I’m speaking to constituents, I’m trying to get the word out in every way I can on what’s going on,” Lamborn said. “The message is that defense has already taken big hits under Barack Obama. He is no friend of the military.”
But it already is clear that the rising tension between former levels of defense spending — when the country was in two wars — and the omnipresent push to cut taxes will only increase as the supercommittee deadline approaches.
It costs money to give out military contracts. It costs money to keep defense spending levels intact. And it costs money to keep up with Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid in an increasingly older and less affluent population.
“There are people outside the supercommittee who say, ‘We need to cut government, but we can’t cut defense. We need to cut government, but we can’t cut social services,’ ” said Bill Allison, editorial director of the Sunlight Foundation, which has urged transparency of the supercommittee. “You can’t do everything. You raise taxes or you cut spending, or you do a little of both.”
On Tuesday, the supercommittee got a tongue-lashing from the popular chairs of the president’s Fiscal Deficit Commission, Democrat Erskine Bowles and Republican former Sen. Alan Simpson of Wyoming.
“I’m worried you’re going to fail,” Bowles told the committee in a rare open meeting.
They both urged the committee to go bigger and adopt a plan similar to theirs, which eliminates $4 trillion from the deficit over 10 years.
Simpson said he knows the decisions are not popular. “People admire guts and courage,” he said.
Federal budget expert Stan Collender said defense contractors will probably be the first to go if the supercommittee fails to reach accord.
“The president is going to take the ability he has to exempt military personnel and people in uniform from pay cuts,” Collender said. “They’re going to have to make a decision about what’s important to them. . . . A lot of members have pledged a lot of things, and they’re going to be hoisted on their own petard.”
Allison Sherry: 202-662-8907 or asherry@denverpost.com
