The House Armed Services’ Readiness Subcommittee has a new chairman for the 113th Congress, but its senior Democrat will remain Madeleine Bordallo, the Guam delegate announced this week. In a written statement, Bordallo said she will continue to support the military construction effort needed to ready Guam to accommodate about 5,000 Marines relocating from Okinawa …
The defense sequester may be here to stay as House Republican leaders are vowing to keep discretionary spending levels at or below where they would fall if the across-the-board spending cuts are imposed. The hard line is part of the strategy the Republicans adopted last week when they decided to drop their demand for dollar-for-dollar spending reductions to match any increase in the nation’s debt ceiling. Under their latest tack, House Republicans will pursue their demands for deep spending cuts over negotiations to reverse sequestration and to keep the federal government open past March …
Air Force leaders last week directed a force-wide civilian hiring freeze among other cost-cutting moves intended to prepare for the looming threat of automatic defense cuts and the possibility that DOD is funded under a continuing resolution through Sept. 30. The memo follows the guidance Deputy Defense Secretary Ashton Carter issued this month authorizing the services to consider a range of immediate actions and conduct more detailed planning for longer-term budget uncertainty …
With the House Republicans’ plan to extend the nation’s borrowing authority until May 19 gaining support from members of both political parties, House conservatives are girding for a battle over the sequester and funding the government beyond March 27. During a meeting of the Republican caucus on Tuesday, party leaders indicated they may be content to keep in place the $85 billion in across-the-board spending reductions set to go into effect March 1 …
Defense officials are being forced to resort to “educated guesses” as they attempt to complete work on the fiscal 2014 defense budget due to the number of unsettled questions about current and future spending. At a time when the Pentagon normally would be nearing the end of the budget process for the upcoming year, officials still are trying to gain a grasp of the current year’s budget. For starters, sequestration is slated to be imposed March 1, forcing the defense budget to absorb about $45 billion in FY 2013 spending cuts …
The House Republican plan to pass a short-term increase in the nation’s borrowing limit without accompanying spending reductions would restore the focus on Capitol Hill to addressing the automatic cuts slated to go into effect on March 1 and expiration of the stopgap spending bill funding the government later that month. On Friday, House leaders said they would take up a measure this week to raise the debt ceiling to a level that would not be reached until April 15, a move that could postpone the threat of another showdown over one dispute until after Congress deals with the other two fiscal issues on its plate …
Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.), the incoming ranking member of the Armed Services Committee, criticized the Obama administration on Thursday for blaming lawmakers for the ongoing dispute over how to replace almost $500 billion in automatic defense cuts, instead of collaborating on a solution. “Rather than simply blaming Congress … it is my hope that you and the [White House] will work with Congress to ensure that an agreement can be reached to spare our military from further devastating cuts …
The Pentagon directive issued last week to prepare for the possibility of deep budget cuts unfairly targets civilian employees, according to a letter from the American Federation of Government Employees. The guidance from Deputy Defense Secretary Ashton Carter directs the services and defense agencies to implement a civilian hiring freeze immediately and draw up plans to carry out 30-day furloughs. That approach is inequitable, however, as “service contractors emerge relatively unscathed …
Chuck Hagel’s path to confirmation to be the next defense secretary may seem rocky now, but if the former Republican senator from Nebraska wins the approval of the Senate, his ability to advance his priorities for the Pentagon on Capitol Hill should not be diminished, according to CQ. Most analysts contacted by CQ believe Hagel will receive support from about 70 senators, a threshold which should offer him solid footing at the helm of the Defense Department. Opposition to Hagel over fears that he wants to slash the size and scope of the military, though, may be trickier to overcome …
Warning that the readiness of the Armed Forces is “at a tipping point,” the Joint Chiefs of Staff exhorted Congress to provide adequate resources to the military to avoid creating a “hollow force.” The threat of sequestration and the likelihood that DOD continues to be funded under a stopgap spending bill for the rest of the fiscal year could trigger a cut in operating budgets of more than 20 percent across the joint force, compared to the president’s original budget request …