Posts Tagged ‘appropriations’

An analysis by the Congressional Budget Office concluding that DOD’s long-term budget greatly exceeds the spending caps imposed in the Budget Control Act is based on the assumption that Congress will reject many of the plan’s cost savings proposals, press secretary George Little told reporters Thursday. Little listed a series of proposals that CBO struck from its assessment of the cost of DOD’s short and long-term budgets — raising TRICARE fees, limiting military pay raises, controlling growth in weapons acquisitions costs and shifting some costs to the department’s warfighting account …

The White House’s top budget official continued to spar with Republican lawmakers over the looming budget sequester, belittling some members’ demands for the administration to explain how hundreds of billions of dollars in across-the-board cuts would affect government programs. “The truth is that no amount of planning or reports will turn the sequester into anything other than the devastating cut in defense and domestic investments that it was meant to be …

Acting Office of Management and Budget Director Jeffrey Zients has agreed to testify before the House Armed Services Committee about the $500 billion in automatic defense cuts set to go into effect starting in January, according to the committee. For much of the year, Committee Chairman Buck McKeon has been pressing the Pentagon and White House to explain how the cuts would be carried out and whether or not budget officials had started planning to implement the sequester. Zients is scheduled to appear before the committee with a senior DOD official on Aug. 1, reported the Hill newspaper. On July 18, the committee is holding a hearing on how the spending cuts will affect the defense industry.

As the calendar advances toward January 2013, when the first $55 billion in automatic cuts is due to be extracted from fiscal 2013 defense spending, lawmakers have seemed content to engage in a flurry of activity without making any serious effort to launch bipartisan discussions to nullify the across-the-board spending cuts. Instead, they have preoccupied themselves primarily with voting on amendments requiring the administration to spell out how the sequester would be implemented, along with highlighting industry studies about the catastrophic economic fallout of imposing $500 billion in defense cuts …

At a news briefing Friday marking the completion of his first year at the helm of the Pentagon, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta recounted many of the military’s successes since he was sworn in. He highlighted several operational achievements, including the return of troops from Iraq, the start of a drawdown of forces from Afghanistan and the fall of Libyan ruler Muammar Gadhafi. Panetta also listed a number of policy milestones, including the development of a long-term budget that meets the goal of cutting $487 billion in spending over 10 years, the crafting of a new defense strategy …

Senate Republicans are proposing that lawmakers form House-Senate working groups to jump start negotiations on a deficit reduction package to replace the $500 billion in automatic spending cuts set to be imposed on the Pentagon starting in January. Sen. Kelly Ayotte is seeing how much the support the idea attracts, and has not yet made plans to go ahead, reported the Hill newspaper. Rep. Adam Smith, ranking member of the House Armed Services Committee, told the publication that Democratic lawmakers in both houses also have talked about the possibility of setting up working groups …

Lawmakers should delay the $109 billion in across-the-board spending cuts slated to go into effect next year to give Congress more time to reach a deficit reduction deal that averts the automatic reductions, New Hampshire Sen. Kelly Ayotte told reporters Tuesday. Such a measure could be attached to the continuing resolution that Congress almost definitely will need to pass to fund the government after Sept. 30, Ayotte said after delivering a speech at the Brookings Institution …

On the heels of the latest analysis warning of dire economic consequences if Congress fails to overturn the automatic defense spending cuts scheduled to take effect starting in January, lawmakers, defense officials and contractors are becoming increasingly alarmed that this worst-case scenario may actually happen. And the effects could set in sooner than next year. The federal government is likely to pull back on spending as soon as the new fiscal year begins on Oct. 1 …

The Senate reached a bipartisan agreement Thursday on language requiring the Pentagon to report on how automatic spending cuts approaching $500 billion over the next nine years will affect the military. The report, which would be due Aug. 15, also would outline how officials would implement the cuts, reported CQ Today. Shortly after the provision, a compromise amendment to the five-year farm bill, was adopted, the Senate approved the legislation …

Lacking confidence that lawmakers will be able to reach a deficit reduction agreement before the end of the year that will nullify automatic defense cuts coming in January, House Armed Services Chair Buck McKeon on Thursday recommended Congress pass a measure now postponing the spending reductions to ease growing anxiety from DOD officials, defense contractors and workers. “Why don’t we just sit down now and say, ‘Look, we’re not mature enough, we’re not adult enough to solve this, so we’re going to just kick it down the road …