It’s funny that here you note correctly that the real problem is that they didn’t plan ahead, so too much of the budget is now off-limits. But in another thread you posted, you attacked a congressman who said exactly the same thing — that the problem is that the DoD didn’t plan for sequestration, because they believed Obama.
The GOP was clear — there would be no sequestration, IF Romney won the presidency. He didn’t. And we aren’t going to increase taxes.
The only way they could have "planned" for this rapid a draw down would have been to take actions like stop awarding contracts, fired the term employees last year (which the DoD would have been destroyed by Congress for doing), and started to cut back on training and operations last year.
Ashton Carter was correct - "planning" for it would have enabled taking actions detrimental to national security before the election, some reversible, some not so reversible.
We raised taxes, but didn't apply ANY of that revenue to the sequester. The White House and Congress discussed all options (including entitlement reform), but it all fell apart.
So the DoD got nothing out of that whole mess except a delay. It wasn't the DoD that came up with this jacked up concept, or the formula that punished defense inordinately. It isn't the DoD who that is bankrupting the nation. Defense spending as a percentage of GDP is at historic lows. You can thank entitlements for that, yet, DC is trying to balance 3/3rds of the budget by cutting the 1/3 that is discretionary spending, with again - defense paying the biggest price.
Defense is Constitutional. Food stamps, Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, TANF, and unemployment checks are not.
No segment of society has sacrificed more for this nation in the last decade since 911, and Defense is being pushed to the front of the fiscal firing squad by Washington.