Posts Tagged ‘continuing resolution’

The House introduced a spending measure Monday that would fund the government through the end of the fiscal year while restoring some of the military’s operations and maintenance funding shortfall that has prompted the services to drastically curtail spending on readiness activities through the end of fiscal 2013. The legislation — which includes individual appropriation bills for defense and military construction-veterans affairs along with a continuing resolution for the remainder of the government — would shift $10.4 billion into DOD’s operations and maintenance accounts to fund priorities such as training, weapons maintenance, civilian personnel and the defense health program that would be threatened under a full-year continuing resolution …

President Obama on Friday said he would accept a continuing resolution to keep the government open beyond March 27 that does not offset the sequester, making it unlikely that either party will threaten a government shutdown over the measure. The stopgap bill funding the last six months of fiscal 2013 would need to provide $1.043 trillion in federal spending, the cap set in the August 2011 agreement to raise the debt ceiling, Obama said …

Following the defeat in the Senate of competing plans to address the sequester, senators from both parties continue to consider alternate ways to afford federal agencies some flexibility when they carry out $85 billion of automatic spending reductions going into effect today. On Thursday, a Republican proposal that would have provided agencies greater flexibility to carry out the cuts received only 38 votes, far short of the 60 needed to advance the measure …

Early indications are that Senate Democrats won’t turn the March 27 deadline for passing a new stopgap funding measure into a showdown with their counterparts over restoring, or at least mitigating, $85 billion in across-the-board cuts set to be imposed today. Since the deal at the beginning of the year to avert the fiscal cliff was reached, many lawmakers have been pointing to the negotiations over the next fiscal 2013 continuing resolution as the best opportunity to address the sequester …

Congress left town Thursday without dealing with sequestration, triggering the imposition of spending cuts of $43 billion on the Pentagon starting today, about 8 percent of the military’s budget. Under budget law, President Obama must sign an order by 11:59 p.m. Friday to begin a total of $85 billion in spending reductions across all agencies’ fiscal 2013 budgets. The law also requires the Office of Management and Budget to prepare a detailed report by today on the agency-by-agency impact of the cuts …

The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) plans to ask Congress to allow DOD to fund its programs at the levels called for in the fiscal 2013 defense authorization bill when it puts together the continuing resolution needed to fund the government after March 27. The authority to reprogram funds would allow the Pentagon to make up the tremendous shortfall in its operations and maintenance accounts that is forcing the services to curtail training and equipment maintenance planned for the remainder of FY 2013 …

The Senate is moving toward separate votes Thursday on competing plans to replace, or at least mitigate, $85 billion in automatic spending reductions set to take effect Friday. Neither is likely to gain the required 60 votes for passage, though, leaving the March 27 deadline for extending fiscal 2013 funding for the federal government as the real milestone for Congress to address the sequester …

The House measure to fund the federal government beyond March 27 most likely will include language allowing the Navy to resume much of the ship repair work it recently has cancelled due the fiscal uncertainty stemming from sequestration and the likelihood the service is funded by a continuing resolution for the remainder of fiscal 2013, Rep. Randy Forbes said Monday. Forbes said he was confident “anomalies” in the stopgap measure would allow Navy officials to shift existing funds into accounts that would cover the maintenance work …

The House Appropriations Committee is expected shortly to unveil its plan to fund the federal government beyond March 27 through a combination of a new continuing resolution along with appropriations bills for defense and military construction-veterans affairs. The stopgap measure for the second half of fiscal 2013 would not offer additional spending for the Pentagon but possibly would provide officials flexibility to allocate funds where they are needed and make other changes that normally would be restricted under a continuing resolution …

As the likelihood that the Pentagon will be forced to absorb deep spending cuts edges closer, the anxiety level of the 4,200 employees at Letterkenny Army Depot, located 50 miles southwest of Harrisburg, Pa., has ramped up. The depot may have to cope with $442 million in cuts this year, jeopardizing the jobs of the civilian contractors employed there and likely resulting in furloughs for its 1,743 full-time civilian workers …