Posts Tagged ‘deficit reduction’

Until a deal is reached between Democrats and Republicans over topline discretionary spending for fiscal 2014, the House may consider only a small handful of individual spending bills, including defense and military construction-veterans affairs. As things stand now, House appropriators favor a government-wide spending level of $967 billion for next year, which reflects an assumption that the spending caps under sequestration will remain in effect. Senate Democrats, on the other hand, plan to set fiscal 2014 discretionary spending at the pre-sequester level of $1.058 trillion, a $91 billion difference …

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 …

Funding constraints are causing the Air Force to curtail training for 13 fighter and bomber squadrons through the end of the fiscal year, but belt-tightening may help the Air Force reach one of its long-term goals, paring down its portfolio of bases. “It’s a significant forcing function,” Air Force Secretary Michael Donley said Tuesday of one benefit of dealing with spending cuts …

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 …

Officials are looking for ways to reduce the civilian workforce by 1,000 positions at 60 installations across the Air Force without laying off employees as they try to meet funding targets in the fiscal 2012 budget request. “Bases are already working through this,” spokeswoman Lt. Col. Laurel Tingley said, trying to match civilians in surplus positions with open jobs. “Our goal is not to do involuntary separation; our goal is to find other jobs” for civilians affected by the reductions …

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 …

The chairman and ranking member of the Senate Armed Services Committee said they oppose the Pentagon’s request to conduct a round of base closures in 2015, a stance which presents a formidable barrier to the Pentagon’s pursuit of a new BRAC round. Committee Chairman Sen. Carl Levin last week said he would not support DOD’s request, continuing his opposition from last year. On Tuesday, though, Levin added that he didn’t believe DOD was serious about its request because it failed to include any funds in next year’s budget to carry out a BRAC round …

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 …