Posts Tagged ‘continuing resolution’

While the Army is struggling to deal with an urgent funding crisis affecting its operations budget, it needs to tackle a fundamental imbalance between its long-term spending plan and force structure, according to an analysis in National Defense magazine. The Army benefitted the most of any service from the escalation in spending following 9/11 and, as a result, will have to shrink far more dramatically than the Air Force or Navy. The administration’s plan to eliminate 100,000 troops by 2017 will not be “nearly enough to get the Army’s fiscal house in order …

The combined impact of sequestration and operating under a full-year continuing resolution would affect an estimated 302,626 jobs in fiscal 2013 and result in an economic loss of $15.4 billion throughout the nation, according to a new analysis by the Army. Texas would suffer the largest estimated economic impact, with a loss of $2.4 billion through Sept. 30, according to a state-by-state estimate released this week by the Army. The rest of the top five states are Alabama ($1.9 billion), Pennsylvania ($1.1 billion), Virginia ($1.0 billion) and Georgia ($931 million) …

The Navy’s plan to cancel much of its ship maintenance and construction in the last half of the year if it is forced to make up a multi-billion-dollar shortfall in operations and maintenance will strike at the heart of the ship repair workforce in the Hampton Roads region of Virginia, reports the Virginian-Pilot. About 40,000 people work in the ship repair industry in Hampton Roads. The Navy recently said it would cancel 70 percent of all ship maintenance projects at private shipyards in the last six months of the fiscal year …

Even as the likelihood that Congress fails to nullify deep spending reductions before they go into effect March 1 draws ever closer, defense officials will not start planning for the possibility that the cuts slated to be imposed next year could be realized as well. The Office of Management and Budget still is directing agencies not to plan for the portion of the sequester set to go into effect in fiscal 2014, Pentagon Comptroller Robert Hale told reporters Wednesday …

The Navy plans to carry out dozens of cost-cutting moves to address the looming shortfall in its budget, affecting ship maintenance and deployments, military construction and installation support, according to a presentation released Tuesday. The list of “potential actions” is based on sequestration kicking in March 1 and DOD being forced to operate under a continuing resolution through Sept. 30. Under those assumptions, the Navy would defer new construction projects costing $675 million; reduce facilities, sustainment, restoration and modernization by 50 percent, or $1.2 billion; and reduce base operating support by 10 percent, or $495 million …

Senate Republicans are considering a handful of alternatives to nullify $85 billion in government-wide spending reductions scheduled to go into effect March 1, with the possibility of offering federal agencies greater flexibility in carrying out the cuts a much-discussed option. Other approaches include replacing the cuts with alternative ones in discretionary and mandatory spending, or by trimming the federal workforce …

With the March 1 deadline triggering sequestration less than two weeks away — and falling only four days after lawmakers return to Capitol Hill from this week’s recess — it’s almost inevitable that the Pentagon will need to start implementing its share of the mechanism’s $85 billion in across-the-board spending cuts. And while many lawmakers from both sides of the aisle have tried to raise the alarm over the devastating effects they will have on the nation’s military readiness, the deep chasm between the two parties over how to replace the cuts makes a deal an iffy proposition. More likely, perhaps, would be a measure that would adjust the arbitrary nature of the spending reductions required under sequestration and offer DOD flexibility in applying them …

Despite attempting to address spending cuts that will have “an irreversible and debilitating impact on the Navy’s readiness through at least 2014,” the chief of naval operations said Wednesday he would fight to preserve funding for family readiness and wellness programs. “Family programs are important,” said Adm. Jonathan Greenert, reported Navy public affairs. “I do not want those constrained.”

A continuing resolution being put together in the House is expected to offer the Defense Department the flexibility to move funds across accounts as a way to help officials deal with the severe funding constraints caused by sequestration. The bill, which would fund the federal government past March 27, largely would extend fiscal 2012 spending laws, but also would include appropriations bills for defense and military construction-veterans affairs. The measure would provide the Pentagon some flexibility to allocate funds where they are needed and make other changes that normally would be restricted under a stopgap spending bill …

The Pentagon’s senior military officers rendered a dire portrait of how automatic spending cuts combined with operating under a continuing resolution for the remainder of fiscal 2013 would harm the nation’s military, during their testimony Tuesday before the Senate Armed Services Committee. If the automatic defense cuts — which would approach $500 billion through FY 2021 — go ahead, the Army will curtail training for 80 percent of its ground forces and across all of its specialties, Army Chief of Staff Gen. Ray Odierno said. The service already has imposed a civilian hiring freeze and will terminate an estimated 3,100 temporary and term employees …