Posts Tagged ‘defense budget’

Military construction programs would receive $10.6 billion under the draft fiscal 2013 spending bill approved Tuesday by the Senate Military Construction and Veterans Affairs Appropriations Subcommittee, a $2.4 billion drop from current year funding. The bill’s recommendation falls $568.9 million below the administration’s budget request, with the shortfall coming out of funds for active component military construction. That account would receive $7.1 billion, a decline of $2.6 billion from FY 2012 …

Defense advocates in Congress are becoming resigned to the prospect that the two parties will be unable to reach a deal to reverse government-wide automatic spending cuts before they begin to take effect in January. As a result, DOD may suffer cuts up to $55 billion in fiscal 2013 beyond the spending reductions already being imposed on the defense budget. Even if lawmakers fail to overturn the sequester in a lame-duck session at the end of the calendar year, the additional cuts could be somewhat limited if Congress strikes a deficit-reduction deal in the first several months of 2013 …

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta last week assured Alaska Sen. Mark Begich that the Pentagon would provide its rationale for its proposal to relocate a squadron of F-16s from Eielson Air Force Base in Fairbanks to Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson in Anchorage. Begich had asked the Air Force for the justification it relied on since officials included the realignment in the force structure changes they announced in February …

House Armed Services Chairman Buck McKeon forcefully defended the changes his panel made to the administration’s budget request in completing the fiscal 2013 defense authorization bill after Defense Secretary Leon Panetta criticized the House for flouting the spending caps imposed by last August’s Budget Control Act. “In your criticism of my proposal for the department’s FY13 authorization bill, you are clearly operating under some misconceptions …

Defense spending would grow by $2.1 trillion over the next 10 years under the budget proposed by presumptive Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney when compared to the Pentagon’s latest long-term spending plan. Romney has proposed spending 4 percent of the nation’s gross domestic product on the military, reported the Hill newspaper. That level of investment would allow DOD spending to rise by $100 billion in fiscal 2013, according to Travis Sharp, an analyst with the Center for a New American Security. Under either the administration’s request or the House Republican plan, defense spending would remain flat or drop slightly. Romney has called for adding 100,000 personnel and building more ships, according to the story.

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta on Thursday urged Congress to reach a compromise to reverse the budget sequester, saying the plan passed by the House Thursday to shield the Pentagon from the automatic spending cuts coming next year will result in “a greater likelihood of sequester.” Even though the House Republicans’ strategy would inoculate DOD from $55 billion in additional spending reductions in fiscal 2013, because it targets domestic programs benefitting the poor and the middle class, the president will never accept it …

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid on Wednesday rejected the House plan to replace the first year’s portion of the automatic spending cuts with a package of reductions in domestic programs, saying a “balanced approach” that includes tax revenue is needed to avert the budget sequester. The leverage provided by the threat of government-wide spending cuts is needed if the two parties are to reach a deal before the end of the year on taxes and deficit reduction, Reid said …

In Columbus, Ga., 55 to 65 percent of hotel guests are traveling on business related to the military, a fact that worries hoteliers that serve travelers visiting or working at Fort Benning. Due to planned reductions in spending, the post expects to train only 96,000 soldiers in the current fiscal year, down from 131,000 soldiers in FY 2011. The bulk of installation-related demand for hotels comes from training, graduation ceremonies and contract jobs, events that likely would shrink as the number of trainees declines, reports Hotel News Now. Fort Benning Army Lodge, an 860-room hotel scheduled to open on post later this year, also may hurt local hotels. Demand for lodging in Columbus fell 13 percent for the first three months of the year, while in other defense communities demand has been flat.

The Pentagon would be restricted to spending no more than $500,000 in a single year to move any one activity to the National Capital Region, according to language in the fiscal 2013 defense spending bill approved by the House Defense Appropriations Subcommittee Tuesday. The language also covers relocations within the Washington, D.C., metro area. The provision can be waived on a case-by-case basis, however, if DOD certifies that such a relocation is in the best interest of the government …

The Army would be prohibited from relocating units at installations with modest concentrations of civilian workers, under the fiscal 2013 spending bill approved by the House Military Construction and Veterans Affairs Appropriations Subcommittee Tuesday. The provision would bar the Army from spending milcon appropriations to move units from posts at which the number of civilian employees of the Army and contractors exceeds 10 percent of the total number of Army service members …