WASHINGTON: Meet the new plan, same as the old plan. Yesterday, Republicans immediately rejected President Obama’s proposal to stop sequestration — the automatic spending cuts set to kick in March 1st and hamstring Army, Air Force, and Navy readiness, according to Pentagon documents — as a retread of tax-hike proposals he’s been making since 2011.… Keep reading →

[UPDATED and CORRECTED Jan. 31 at 3:45 pm Shipbuilders’ Council Says Job Loss Numbers Are Estimates And Not Official Council Numbers] WASHINGTON: For anyone who believed those who have claimed that defense cuts don’t affect “real” jobs or the economy, today appears to be a sobering day. At Tuesday’s general meeting of the Shipbuilders’ Council… Keep reading →

The House Armed Services Committee has announced subcommittee membership for this session. Since the information isn’t up on the website yet, we’re posting it here for our readers use. The following is the release as we received it from the HASC spokesman: Washington D.C. – Today, House Armed Services Committee Chairman Howard P. “Buck” McKeon… Keep reading →

[updated Tuesday 1/29 with Rep. Forbes’ recommendations & McKeon selections for QDR independent panel] WASHINGTON: It’s that time again. Though delayed by the still-unsettled strife over sequestration and the continuing resolution, deep inside the Pentagon the ponderous machinery of the Quadrennial Defense Review is gearing up. But this may be the QDR’s last chance. With… Keep reading →

CAPITOL HILL: Martha Roby is not a guy, but she is a Republican — and now, the chair of the most politically charged panel of the biggest committee in the Congress. Roby is not the only House GOP woman in a leadership position. One woman holds a full committee chairmanship in the GOP House. Rep.… Keep reading →

CRYSTAL CITY: A senior Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee has given up hope that the House can agree on anything to prevent sequestration, provide defense appropriations for the remainder of the year, or raise the debt ceiling. Judging from the way all the recent fiscal crises have been resolved, the solution has been… Keep reading →

[UPDATED 3:30 pm on 1/8/2013 with revised CSBA estimates] WASHINGTON: The battle of the fiscal cliff is over, but the war to stop sequestration rages on – and President Obama’s decision that his new Secretary of Defense should be former Sen. Chuck Hagel, the Republican other Republicans love to hate, makes it even harder to… Keep reading →

The U.S. aerospace industry got an early Christmas present this week, when House and Senate conferees approved defense authorization legislation that gives the President discretion to determine export jurisdiction for satellites. The legislation next will be voted on by the full Congress, and signed by the President. That process will conclude a necessary-but-not-sufficient, long-awaited first… Keep reading →

[Updated Friday 12/21] CAPITOL HILL: It looks like the country’s getting a defense bill for Christmas, with provisions on everything from boosting cybersecurity to sanctioning Iran to loosening export controls on satellites. In what passes for high efficiency in Congress these days, the House and Senate Armed Services Committees completed their conference on the National… Keep reading →

[Updated and corrected 11:45 pm] WASHINGTON: The powerful National Guard Association of the US today denounced an unnamed “handful of House Armed Services Committee members” who, it says, are trying to use the ongoing House-Senate conference on the National Defense Authorization Act to reinstate cuts to the Air National Guard. The Air Force proposed reducing… Keep reading →