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The Defense Department is caught in a budgetary catastrophe brought on by a government-wide spending crunch that leaves little room for the military's full menu of big-ticket weapons programs, House Armed Services Tactical Air and Land Forces Subcommittee Chairman Curt Weldon, R-Pa., said Wednesday.

In his view, the department's budgetary woes may be remedied in part with more military base closings.

"We're in the midst of a massive train wreck," Weldon said in an interview with CongressDaily.

He said decisions by the Clinton administration to delay military modernization programs exacerbated the current crisis, causing many of those systems, such as the F-22 fighter, to enter production only now and intensify current demands for defense dollars.

"In the '90s, I said if you don't deal with the modernization needs that were being postponed, that it would eventually catch up to us and we'd face a catastrophic situation," he said.

Weldon, the second-ranking GOP member of the Armed Services panel, who might be in line to take over as chairman in 2009, recommended a three-pronged approach to curbing defense spending and righting the Pentagon budget.

"We're going to have to do better with the money that we're given," Weldon said. "That's going to require reforms in our current budget dollars."

His first move would be to begin another base-closure round. That would surely draw heated opposition from his colleagues on Capitol Hill, many of whom fiercely battled Pentagon officials last year over their closure recommendations.

But Weldon, a long-time advocate of closing bases, insisted Wednesday that the military still has room to shed infrastructure, both in the United States and abroad. How many bases -- and when the closure round should begin -- should be up to the military, he said.

"I'd rather let the generals and admirals we pay to run the military tell us whether or not there is any excess capacity," Weldon said. "And, if there is, let them come back with a plan for us."

Weldon also wants the U.S. military to work closer with allies on defense programs to bring down overall costs to the Pentagon. Projects like the Army's sprawling Future Combat Systems, now estimated to cost between $161 billion and $200 billion, could benefit from foreign input and investment, he said.

In addition, the Pennsylvania Republican wants to make radical changes to the way the Pentagon conducts business and writes it budgets. Among his many proposals is a move toward "capital" budgeting, which would separate procurement dollars from operational accounts.

"You don't touch that modernization money," he said. "If we did that (considered procurement spending separately), we wouldn't be in the dilemma we're in today."

Should the Defense Department and Congress not make these and other changes, Weldon fears the military will be unable to replace older systems, forcing troops to operate decades-old machinery.

"The B-52 bomber will be eligible for Social Security before I will," he quipped.

But Weldon said he recognizes that many of his suggestions are long-term solutions to a problem that must be addressed, in part, during the current budget cycle. He expects his committee to cut a wide array of weapons programs to avoid parochial squabbles over competing priorities.

"We starve all programs," he said.

Weldon conceded that Congress hates to cancel defense programs, preferring to skim money off the top of some big-ticket items to pay for others. "We don't cancel anything," he said.

One program that could also be ripe for hundreds of millions of dollars in cuts is the Future Combat Systems, which has provoked intense scrutiny from lawmakers concerned about burgeoning costs and the Army's management of the program. Weldon also predicted that his panel might recommend trimming the budget for the Joint Strike Fighter program.

But Weldon echoed a common sentiment heard in Congress most election years, saying he would prefer those budget-cutting decisions be made in the Pentagon, rather than across the river on Capitol Hill.

"We pay the service chiefs big money to run the military and tell us how to fight wars," Weldon said. "I would rather have a military officer tell us where to cut than a politician who is going to apply all of his parochial considerations."