WASHINGTON: Congress seems increasingly resigned to sequestration cuts and base closures, ideas which once met fierce rejection on Capitol Hill. That’s the counterintuitive takeaway from Chuck Hagel’s first hearing as Defense Secretary on the 2014 budget request, one largely overtaken by events.
The weary notes that legislators struck on the budget probably had something to do with the nearly four-hour session required to take questions from almost 60 HASC members on everything from the new Distinguished Warfare Medal to missile defense against North Korea — and even then not everyone on the committee got a turn. But there’s a much deeper layer of exhaustion, one that comes from two years of budget gridlock. What once seemed intolerable now looks inevitable. Keep reading →
Colin Clark
Sydney J. Freedberg, Jr.
Why We Should Cut Tri-Nation Anti-Missile Program, MEADS
By Pete HegsethAnyone who has served in the military knows there is plenty of fat to be cut in the Pentagon budget. But rather than take a “meat ax” to the budget — as Defense Secretary Panetta famously described sequestration — there are more targeted ways to reduce and reform defense spending.
Whether it’s procedural inefficiencies, duplicative programs, cost overruns, or endemic waste, there are billions upon billions of Pentagon dollars that could be eliminated without undermining the Defense Department’s ability to execute its Constitutional mandate-to “provide for the common defense.” Keep reading →