The Army could be forced to eliminate at least 100,000 soldiers over the coming decade if sequestration remains in effect through fiscal 2021, the service’s top officials told lawmakers Tuesday. “One hundred thousand is the minimum,” Gen. Ray Odierno, the Army’s chief of staff, told the Senate Armed Services Committee. “If it goes to full sequestration, it will probably be more than that …
An infusion of funds for DOD’s operations account courtesy of the full-year fiscal 2013 defense spending bill Congress passed in March has granted the Hampton Roads, Va., region a reprieve from many of the overhaul and other ship maintenance projects the Navy earlier had suspended. But sequestration, which could slash the defense budget by almost $500 billion through FY 2021, is still lurking and defense contractors in the area remain anxious about the future, reports the Virginian-Pilot …
Officials still are evaluating whether to furlough more than 700,000 civilian employees as a way to trim defense spending over the last half of the year, Pentagon Comptroller Robert Hale said on Thursday. “Secretary Hagel has asked that we take another close look at furloughs, and we are in the process of doing that …
Lawmakers on Wednesday pressed Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel to explain why the department’s $527 billion base budget request for fiscal 2014 ignores sequestration and is $52 billion above the spending cap set by the 2011 Budget Control Act. Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.), the senior Republican on the Armed Services Committee, said what was “most troubling” about the budget was that it did “not even acknowledge the mandatory cuts associated with sequestration in fiscal year ’14, much less propose a plan to replace the cuts that can actually pass Congress …
As the budget season gets under way, Democrats and Republicans will need to find a compromise over sequestration before appropriators can craft fiscal 2014 spending measures. As the law currently stands, automatic cuts will result in government-wide discretionary spending falling from about $984 billion in the current year to $967 billion in FY 2014. That’s the figure House appropriators favor …
Teachers and counselors at DOD Education Activity (DODEA) schools will not be furloughed during the current school year, ensuring military children won’t miss any class time before the academic year ends in June. Until last week’s announcement, DODEA had not said how sequestration would affect the operation of on-base schools, but military families had worried that planned furloughs for civilian employees would shorten the school year …
The Obama administration’s decision to deliver a fiscal 2014 budget request that ignores the $52 billion sequester cut slated to be imposed on defense spending next year leaves it uncertain how the department’s new budget will be determined. The best case scenario is that Congress and the White House reach a long-term deficit reduction agreement — perhaps as part of the negotiations needed to lift the nation’s debt ceiling before the end of the summer — that replaces the automatic spending cuts …
Scheduled ship repairs that had been suspended due to sequestration now will go ahead, the Navy’s top budget official said Wednesday. The Navy had said that contracts for 11 ships with private shipyards would be cancelled as the Navy looked for ways to mitigate the need to slash $4.6 billion in spending by Sept. 30, reported the Virginian Pilot. Nine ships scheduled for overhaul in Hampton Roads, Va., will be repaired in coming months, and most maintenance at other shipyards in the United States and overseas will occur as well, Rear Adm. Joseph Mulloy, deputy secretary for the budget, told reporters …
The Pentagon’s fiscal 2014 budget request for $526.6 billion represents a healthy 8 percent increase over current year funding, but because it ignores the reality of sequestration it is unlikely to be realized. Instead, the White House has proposed a set of tax increases and spending cuts to reverse sequestration and the $500 billion in automatic defense cuts it requires. DOD still would need to absorb $150 billion in spending reductions over the coming decade, but those cuts would be deferred until after FY 2018 …
The Air Force on Tuesday began grounding about one-third of its active-duty combat aircraft stationed in the United States, Europe and the Pacific to cope with automatic spending cuts to its operations and maintenance account. The stand-down affects more than a dozen squadrons of fighter, bomber, aggressor, and airborne warning and control aircraft and will eliminate about 45,000 flying hours by the end of September. The move is intended to ensure that remaining units can maintain sufficient readiness through the remainder of the fiscal year …