WASHINGTON [updated 4:30 pm]: At an Aerospace Industries Association event to roll out a new report estimating that sequestration would cost the country more than two million jobs in 2013 — one million from Defense cuts, as previously reported, plus another million from cuts to non-defense agencies — Republican Senator Kelly Ayotte and Democrat Sen.…
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.WASHINGTON: If Republicans don’t agree to a “balanced” deal that raises revenues, Democrats are willing to let sequestration strike on Jan. 2nd — and the Bush tax cuts expire on Dec. 31st — Sen. Patty Murray said this afternoon in a major escalation of Congress’s ongoing game of chicken. “If we can’t get … a…
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.WASHINGTON: As jetlagged aerospace executives and defense reporters head home from a frankly discouraging Farnborough Air Show, Washington is gearing up for storm of stop-sequestration events this coming week. What it will actually accomplish is an open question. Sequestration has hardly been a quiet topic this past week, with a pointed, partisan, and unproductive exchange…
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.Washington, DC is echoing with a chorus of “sequester fear.” It is an election year and the cacophony is deafening: sequester is a budgetary Pearl Harbor, a “doomsday machine” that will shred our national security. The Pentagon says it, members of Congress from both parties say it, and the defense industry is jumping up and…
By Gordon AdamsOn the eve of the international Farnborough Airshow, a prominent aerospace and defense analyst says there is a wave of investment ready to pour into the defense sector – but investors are “paralyzed” by the unresolved threat of sequestration. “A lot of people in the industry and a lot of investment capital outside the industry…
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.PENTAGON: Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and Joint Chiefs chairman Gen. Martin Dempsey took the stage together at the Pentagon this afternoon, 12 months after Panetta took office, to urge Congressional action against sequestration and to defend the administration’s strategy in Afghanistan. The normally calm Panetta became audibly emotional as he discussed the sacrifices of the…
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.McKeon just posted letter to Harry Reid demanding Senate stop #sequestration: http://1.usa.gov/LFOzHW. More from McKeon: http://aol.it/MbAL8K SydneyFreedberg
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.WASHINGTON: House Armed Services Committee chairman Buck McKeon seethed with frustration at Senate Democrats today when asked about Senate Armed Services chairman Carl Levin‘s proposals for a “grand compromise” to avert sequestration. McKeon doubted any kind of grand bargain could happen this year, before or after the election, and said that the best plausible scenario…
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.WASHINGTON: When Bob Stevens, CEO of Lockheed Martin, delivered his now annual speech before the Farnborough or Paris air show, he didn’t talk much about international sales or the Joint Strike Fighter or the military threats America faces. Instead, Stevens talked mostly about the mandatory budget cuts known as sequestration and the “fog of uncertainty”…
By Colin ClarkWASHINGTON: Congress must act by fall — before the election — and pass some sort of answer to sequestration, says the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee. Sen. Carl Levin told reporters that his colleagues are beginning to focus on the fact that layoff notices for hundreds of thousands of defense and government jobs…
By Colin ClarkWASHINGTON: The United States is still the world’s indispensable nation and we’ll probably avoid sequestration, albeit by the skin of our teeth. That’s the modestly reassuring message from the unlikely duo of Michèle Flournoy, who recently left her job as under secretary of defense for policy, and Dov Zakheim, Pentagon comptroller under George W. Bush.…
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.CAPITOL HILL: Apologizing to Pakistan, the economic impact of sequestration, and the possibility of a cyber-war “Pearl Harbor” dominated today’s hearing of the defense panel of the all-powerful Senate Appropriations committee. Sen. Dianne Feinstein — who also chairs the intelligence committee — asks Defense Secretary Leon Panetta why we couldn’t just apologize to Pakistan for…
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.WASHINGTON: Companies that do business with the federal government will have to announce “hundreds of thousands” of lay-offs just days before the November election, predicted the former Pentagon comptroller for George W. Bush. As sequestration approaches, said Dov Zakheim, the former comptroller, companies large and small will be faced with layoffs, which by law —…
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.
How Sequestration Slams Small Business
George Hill is president of Advex Corporation, a company based in Hampton, Virginia and a member of the Aircraft Carrier Industrial Base Coalition (ACIBC). Unless Congress acts to change the existing law, sequestration will automatically cut $1.2 trillion from the President’s budget over the next decade-including $492 billion from military spending. These cuts threaten one…
By George Hill