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Continuing Resolution
Whether by sequestration or some other mechanism, defense spending is headed down. If we make cuts wisely, we will still have the best trained and best equipped force in the world. If we don't, we will squander a decade of investment and become more vulnerable. Having cancelled and delayed weapons
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Date:
3/22/2013
The Department of Defense is facing the budgetary equivalent of double jeopardy this year because in addition to suffering across-the-board cuts due to sequestration, it is also functioning under a Continuing Resolution (CR) that further constrains how money may be allocated. Like previous CRs,
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Date:
3/5/2013
Sequestration is now in effect although for how long we do not know. If it lasts for the rest of Fiscal Year 2013 it will cut approximately $85 billion from federal spending. Over the next ten years the total reduction will be about $850 billion plus another $150 billion in savings on interest payments.
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Date:
3/1/2013
Most of the criticism of the lack of progress on undoing the blunt instrument that is sequestration has focused on the role of Congress and particularly the Republican-dominated House of Representatives. Left almost entirely out of this discussion is President Obama, the Commander in Chief. It was
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Date:
2/7/2013
Joseph Stalin is alleged to have remarked with respect to military power that “quantity has a quality all its own.” At another time, the Soviet tyrant is recorded as having interrupted a speech by Winston Churchill on the need to treat Poland well because of the relationship between it and the Vatican
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Date:
2/6/2013
If you are a program manager in one of the military services, a budgeter in the Pentagon or a senior executive in the defense industry it must seem as if you are suffering death by a thousand cuts. First the Congress and the President agree to the Budget Control Act (BCA) which was advertised as
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Date:
8/1/2012
It is always risky to raise the subject of legislation, particularly appropriations bills, in conversation or a blog. There are few people even in Washington who understand the basics of the budget process and how an appropriations bill gets constructed and passed. What is the difference between
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Date:
2/8/2011


