The Skinny On Trump’s Skinny Budget: Much Still Unclear

The Skinny On Trump’s Skinny Budget: Much Still Unclear
The Skinny On Trump’s Skinny Budget: Much Still Unclear

The Trump administration’s long awaited “skinny budget”, officially named “America First: A Budget Blueprint to Make America Great Again”, has arrived. It confirms the $54 billion increase in defense, and proposes to add $30 billion to this year’s (fiscal 2017) budget. It provides a description of what the Trump administration hopes to achieve in defense…

What Election Will Mean For The Defense Budget

What Election Will Mean For The Defense Budget
What Election Will Mean For The Defense Budget

No one has done a better job of predicting the final outcomes of deals on the defense budget since sequestration was made law than Mackenzie Eaglen of the American Enterprise Institute. So we asked her to predict what this election will mean to the 2018 defense budget. With the election tomorrow, we couldn’t think of a…

Two Cheers for OCO: Grease For Budget Wheels

Two Cheers for OCO: Grease For Budget Wheels
Two Cheers for OCO: Grease For Budget Wheels

The verdict from think tanks and commentators is in: Overseas Contingency Operations (OCO), the much-criticized war funding account, should move to the base budget because of abuses and a lack of transparency. As a matter of theory, such a move would be good government. OCO deflects hard choices and distorts the budget process. In the…

Budget Fight At The OCO Corral

Budget Fight At The OCO Corral
Budget Fight At The OCO Corral

Should war funds be used to help the military patch gaps in its regular budget? It sounds like a technical issue, but the ongoing debate has turned into a battle royale, with a new scuffle breaking out just last week. It’s a slugfest featuring bad ideas, even worse ideas and a healthy dose of hypocrisy,…

Why DoD’s Year-End Spending Needs to Change

Why DoD’s Year-End Spending Needs to Change
Why DoD’s Year-End Spending Needs to Change

As the end of the fiscal year approaches at the Department of Defense (DoD), teams at most defense organizations are working hard to spend all the funds in the Pentagon’s day-to-day operating budgets, which are available for use only during the ourrent fiscal year. To do otherwise, they fear, would suggest that not all available funds…

Memos, Vetos, Spending And Those Elections

Memos, Vetos, Spending And Those Elections
Memos, Vetos, Spending And Those Elections

WASHINGTON: Congress has returned after a week of uncommonly beautiful weather for Washington in late August. But, with all the other miseries that Congress has wrought upon the American people in the last few years, lawmakers appear to have brought the hot and muggy weather back with them. What else might they have brought back? Could…

HASC Hammers Navy Readiness In Push For $18B Defense Boost

HASC Hammers Navy Readiness In Push For $18B Defense Boost
HASC Hammers Navy Readiness In Push For $18B Defense Boost

CAPITOL HILL: House Republicans keep hammering on military shortfalls, part of their push for a controversial $18 billion budget boost that the Senate has so far rejected and the White House has threatened to veto. “The message that we’re hearing is across the services we have a significant problem with readiness,” Rep. Randy Forbes told me.…

An Anti-Daesh Strategy, One With A Chance Of Success

An Anti-Daesh Strategy, One With A Chance Of Success
An Anti-Daesh Strategy, One With A Chance Of Success

The current U.S. strategy to destroy the Islamic State (Daesh) is ineffective and is unlikely to succeed. To be successful, the new strategy must be affordable, offer the legitimate hope for an acceptable outcome, and come to resolution within a reasonable timeframe. This new approach would be coordinated with regional allies and have three objectives: Contain…

Thornberry Fires Back At SecDef Over OCO Spending

Thornberry Fires Back At SecDef Over OCO Spending
Thornberry Fires Back At SecDef Over OCO Spending

STUTTGART, GERMANY: HASC Chairman Rep. Mac Thornberry, responding to comments by Defense Secretary Ash Carter which we reported yesterday, rejected criticisms about a spending gimmick the House Armed Services Committee chairman hopes to use to improve readiness for the U.S. military. Thornberry was reacting to comments Carter made en route to Stuttgart for the European Command…

‘We Need To Hold Our Noses,’ Buy Russian RD-180 Engines: SecDef

‘We Need To Hold Our Noses,’ Buy Russian RD-180 Engines: SecDef
‘We Need To Hold Our Noses,’ Buy Russian RD-180 Engines: SecDef

WASHINGTON: Ash Carter made many reporters’ day this morning when he pithily put the case for the Pentagon to continue buying Russian RD-180 rocket engines until the United States has two tested and reliable launch providers capable of replacing the highly reliable and relatively cheap Atlas V built and operated by the United Launch Alliance. “We…

Dems May Refuse To Support HASC NDAA: Our Markup Preview

Dems May Refuse To Support HASC NDAA: Our Markup Preview
Dems May Refuse To Support HASC NDAA: Our Markup Preview

WASHINGTON: Mac Thornberry, chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, wants to boost funding for readiness and modernization and he’s using a budgeting gimmick in the defense policy bill to do it that is prompting much head shaking. (A similar gimmick led to a short-lived presidential veto last year). Colin’s bet is that, should the Senate…