Posts Tagged ‘defense budget’

The strategic review of defense priorities now under way at the Pentagon is not intended to recommend ways its budget can be trimmed to absorb $52 billion in sequester cuts next year, but almost certainly will influence decisions made by both lawmakers and the administration as to what spending categories will bear the most severe cuts. “The choices the president and secretary of defense make in response to the decision points identified in the review in the months thereafter will then inform our 2015 budget submission as well as how we execute our 2014 budget …

Sequestration is holding up 11 DOD Education Activity replacement and renovation projects in the fiscal 2013 budget, according to DODEA. Only one of the projects is in the United States, with the remaining ones spread across Japan, Germany, the United Kingdom and South Korea. The U.S. project is at Fort Campbell, Ky.

The House plans to start taking up fiscal 2014 appropriations bills in June, with the defense spending measure possibly reaching the floor by the middle of the month. House Appropriations Chairman Harold Rogers (R-Ky.) is expected to get the process started shortly by allocating the $967 billion available for discretionary spending next year among the 12 spending bills, reported CQ. As long as the House and Senate fail to come to agreement over a FY 2014 budget resolution, though, the Democrat-controlled Senate will be crafting spending bills based on a pre-sequester figure of $1.058 trillion …

The chairman and ranking member of the Senate Armed Services Committee have asked the Pentagon to detail how it would carry out the $52 billion in sequester cuts slated to be imposed next year. The fiscal 2014 budget delivered last month by DOD assumes that the automatic spending cuts will not go into effect. To date, however, there has been no progress on a bipartisan deficit reduction agreement required to avert sequestration …

New Mexico Sens. Tom Udall and Martin Heinrich say they will oppose the Air Force’s proposal to close the Operationally Responsive Space Office at Kirtland Air Force Base, a program which employs about 100 military, civilian and contractor personnel. “These cuts are penny-wise and pound-foolish and were explicitly rejected by Congress last year,” Heinrich said Wednesday. “It makes no sense to me that the Department of Defense — in an attempt to lower costs — has again proposed terminating a program that lowers costs in the first place …

Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel will make a decision shortly on the extent to which civilian workers will be forced to take unpaid days off, Pentagon Press Secretary George Little told reporters Wednesday. “We’re in the middle of a $37 billion to $40 billion cut over a six-month period, and we need to look closely at that, but I expect him to make a decision soon …

If Congress and the White House fail to reach a deficit reduction deal that replaces automatic spending cuts starting in fiscal 2014, the Pentagon would consider crafting an alternate budget, Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said Tuesday. Last month, the Obama administration sent Congress a $526.6 billion base budget for next year that does not reflect the $52 billion reduction in defense spending triggered under sequestration in FY 2014 …

To date, the Pentagon has said all of its civilian employees will share the burden of taking unpaid days off on an equal basis, but at least one of the services has identified alternate budget cuts it could carry out that would obviate the need for civilian furloughs. As a result, defense officials face pressure to reconsider their plans, reports the Washington Post. DOD’s latest plan calls for up to 800,000 civilians to take 14 furlough days, although the department is figuring out if could reduce that number and still absorb the $41 billion sequester cut imposed this year …

The failure of the White House and congressional Democrats to leverage the anger over flight delays caused by the furlough of air traffic controllers into a government-wide annulment of this year’s sequester cuts provides strong proof that the automatic spending cuts will not be cancelled before the fiscal year is completed. For Republicans, the legislation quickly passed last week to end the furlough of controllers for the rest of fiscal 2013 represented a victory in the battle over sequestration, one reinforcing their stance that the $85 billion in cuts should remain in place for the year …

House Appropriations Chair Harold Rogers [...]