News
Budget War Game Gives Players Freedom to Make ‘Tough Choices’
The Pentagon has spent much of the past decade figuring out how to spend more each year, rather than less. Military and civilian leaders, as former Joint Chiefs Chairman Adm. Mike Mullen once said, have “lost their ability to prioritize.”
Tax Fight Freezes Defense Industry out of Negotiations over ‘Fiscal Cliff’
The defense industry has $500 billion in pending Pentagon cuts at stake in the “fiscal cliff” talks, yet it finds itself largely sidelined in the heated debate.
On Defense, Congress Needs to Change Its Ways
Discussion of the “fiscal cliff” since the presidential election has focused so far on the type and amount of tax increases that congressional Republicans might accept and the changes in entitlement programs that President Obama and Democrats could agree to in exchange. Sooner or later, however, the negotiations must turn to the crucial subject of defense spending. The automatic spending cuts due to kick in at the beginning of next year include $56.5 billion from the Pentagon, more than 10 percent of its base budget. If left unchanged, the sequester would cut defense by $454 billion over a decade.
Sequestration Or Not, U.S. Firms, DoD Will Take A Hit
Even if the U.S. Congress is able to hammer out a debt deal that avoids sequestration in January, the resulting agreement will likely result in billions of dollars in additional cuts to the Defense Department -- perhaps as much as $25 billion -- likely forcing the military to alter its roles and missions.
5 Ways Obama Can Defuse a Fiscal Cliff Stalemate
Even if the “do nothing Congress” lives up to its reputation and doesn’t come up with a deal, President Obama could still soften the economic blow of the fiscal cliff.
Troops not Safe from Sequestration
If Washington’s defense community has achieved one thing over the past year, it’s spreading the message of how the fiscal cliff could desecrate the military. Sequestration cuts of $55 billion would jeopardize weapons contracts, furlough civilian staff, and imperil national security, defense hawks say/.../