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Budget Control Act
The Pentagon today unveiled a $527 billion spending request for fiscal 2014 which sticks with the military priorities that President Obama enunciated last year. Surprisingly, it also sticks with the spending levels despite a deficit law that would require military expenditures to be about $50 billion
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Date:
4/10/2013
Defense officials know that their acquisition system isn’t a free market but they often like to pretend otherwise. This has been the case most notably over the past four years. Confronted with declining defense budgets and rising costs for defense goods and services, Pentagon leaders have become
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Date:
2/11/2013
Pentagon leaders have been warning for years that formulaic cuts to the defense budget would damage America's military, and now it's about to happen. The first blow will come not from sequestration as everybody expected, but from a continuing resolution that limits fiscal 2013 spending to prior-year
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Date:
1/29/2013
The Middle East is ablaze again, literally, and Israel is sending strong signals that it intends to attack Iran's nuclear complex with or without U.S. assistance. It would be nice to stay out of this latest round of regional violence -- most Americans have had their fill of foreign entanglements
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Date:
9/14/2012
If the second round of Budget Control Act cuts occurs, there will be serious job loss in the defense industry. According to the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) act, employers are obligated to notify employees of potential job loss at least 60 days in advance. Since budget cuts
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Date:
8/1/2012
After Barack Obama carried New Mexico by a 15-point margin in the 2008 presidential race, some people forgot it was a swing state. But the reality is that Al Gore won the state by only 300 votes in 2000, and George Bush carried it by 6,000 in 2004, so there is no guarantee it will go for Obama
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Date:
7/26/2012
In the ten months since Congress passed the Budget Control Act last August, a stereotype has taken hold about the different ways in which Republicans and Democrats view the prospect of automatic cuts to the federal budget. Republicans, it is said, are mainly concerned about cuts in military spending
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Date:
6/14/2012
Senior executives at major defense companies are warning that the sequestration provisions contained in last year's Budget Control Act could produce chaos if they trigger as planned on January 2. The law requires that $60 billion be cut from defense accounts in fiscal 2013 as part of a ten-year
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Date:
6/8/2012
Over the last several months, discussion of budget sequestration in defense circles has taken on an increasingly grim tone. As the January 2 date when automatic cuts are scheduled to trigger draws closer with little sign of congressional movement to avert implementation, politicians, policymakers
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Date:
6/6/2012
Under the terms of the Budget Control Act passed into law last year, federal programs are due for automatic, across-the-board spending cuts beginning on January 2. The law calls for $1.2 trillion in new savings over the nine years between 2013 and 2021, with cuts split equally between defense and
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Date:
5/30/2012
As the clock ticks down to the January 2 deadline when automatic spending cuts are due to be triggered by last year's Budget Control Act, people in the defense sector are getting edgy. With little progress in Congress to avert sequestration likely before November elections, there will only be a
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Date:
5/22/2012
Although I have been in Washington for more than 35 years I cannot think of a law more stupid than the 2011 Budget Control Act (BCA). Not only did the Act first cut $489 billion from the defense budget over ten years but it mandated an additional $500 billion reduction starting in January 2013 if
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Date:
5/18/2012
Recently, the Lexington Institute published an analysis by a senior aerospace official of ways to reduce excess spending in defense.
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Date:
5/11/2012
After being in denial for most of last year about the meaning of the Budget Control Act, Pentagon policymakers are beginning to realize that sequestration is probably going to happen. Under the law, that would result in the Pentagon's base budget being cut another $55 billion below the present
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Date:
3/16/2012
In 2011, Congress and the White House entered into a Faustian bargain in order to satisfy the competing demands for raising the debt ceiling and deficit reduction. The Budget Control Act (BCA) of 2011 mandated some $900 billion of cuts over 10 years in exchange for an initial debt limit increase
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Date:
2/21/2012
Yesterday, the Obama Administration submitted its Fiscal Year 2013 federal budget that proposes spending $525 billion for the Pentagon plus another $88 billion on war costs. Overall, defense spending will decline by six percent relative to last year. More significantly, the FY 2013 budget marks
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Date:
2/14/2012
The 112th Congress has received the unfortunate, albeit partially correct, reputation as a “do-nothing” body. It is true that the 112th as passed fewer pieces of legislation than any other in history. This may not be a bad thing, particularly in light of all the controversial laws passed by its
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Date:
2/8/2012
The Department of Defense is facing the prospect of massive spending cuts beginning next January as a result of the Budget Control Act. The law mandates automatic cuts to military spending beyond the $490 billion already planned because a special congressional committee failed to identify $1.2
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Date:
1/17/2012
Last week President Obama took the unusual step of going to the Pentagon to announce a new defense strategy. In doing so he did more than put his personal stamp on the new document. Obama also was drumming up support for the budget cuts ($480 billion over ten years) that had necessitated the reductions
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Date:
1/9/2012
You don't need to look at big-ticket weapon systems like aircraft carriers and fighters to see what budget sequestration might mean for America's military capabilities. In fact, you don't need to look at Pentagon programs at all. Consider the Coast Guard, the modestly-funded maritime force located
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Date:
12/2/2011
The consensus around Washington is that the failure of the super committee to reach agreement on $1.2 billion in deficit reduction over ten years was a setback for just about everybody involved. Congress showed that it could not achieve a compromise. President Obama demonstrated he has no power
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Date:
11/30/2011
There is a mistaken notion floating around Washington that even if the super committee fails to arrive at a deficit reduction agreement this is no big deal because the reductions do not go into effect until January 2013. The theory goes that Congress will have plenty of time to undo the law or protect
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Date:
11/21/2011
Robert Ewers of Height Analytics put out a note on November 16 suggesting that full-scale sequestration of defense funds under the Budget Control Act is unlikely to occur given the devastating consequences. Among the consequences he cites are a ten-percent year-over-year decline in fiscal 2013
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Date:
11/17/2011
Two unassailable realities are aligning to drive the reshaping of the U.S. military. The first is a shift in the focus of U.S. strategic interests and planning to the Asia-Pacific region. The reasons for this are obvious. The region from India eastward around to East and Southeast Asia and then
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Date:
10/20/2011
Back on August 18, I suggested that the Budget Control Act (BCA) contained two traps, one for the Obama Administration and the other for Republicans in Congress, particularly the new “Tea Party” faction. The traps are built into the automatic cuts that will be triggered by a failure of the so-called
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Date:
9/28/2011
Proponents of the administration's jobs bill say that if the $447 billion measure is enacted, it could create 1-2 million new jobs. However, defense cuts that may occur pursuant to the deficit-reduction law signed by President Obama in August could wipe out a million jobs, blunting the job-creation
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Date:
9/20/2011