The House passed the second Continuing Resolution of the year today, avoiding the direst scenario that had haunted many in American defense circles. But the CR’s passage does not mean anyone has avoided sequestration, as the mandatory budget cuts are known. And cutting $50 billion a year from the Pentagon budget for the next 10… Keep reading →

House passes CR. Now that’s out of the way, on to sequestration. Sigh. http://bit.ly/Xszyvi colinclarkaol

Unless Sens. Ted Cruz, James Inhofe or another GOP senator decides to take some extraordinary actions, their former colleague Chuck Hagel’s nomination to be Defense Secretary will be approved this week by about 65 of their colleagues. It is not a time when many candidates would asipire to be SecDef. The budget is beginning its… Keep reading →

AFA Winter, ORLANDO: The latest looming casualty to the congressional budget mess is Boeing’s KC-46 tanker contract, which is in peril unless Congress approves roughly $1 billion in funding. If you want some idea of just how much uncertainty and confusion sequestration and the Continuing Resolution are generating, this latest mess is a good example.… Keep reading →

UPDATED: Added Capitol Hill Reaction AFA Winter, Orlando: Imagine if someone told you 70 percent of all American combat aircraft would not be ready to fly in time of war by July. That’s just what Air Force Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Mark Welsh told some 600 people attending the Air Force Associations’s annual… Keep reading →

WASHINGTON: In a telling sign of the uncertain economic and spending climate in the defense world – faced with sequestration and the possibility of a year-long Continuing Resolution — at least three defense conferences have been cancelled in the last two months and defense companies continue to pare their participation in even the biggest shows,… Keep reading →

Rising Republican star Sen. Kelly Ayotte said her “libertarian” and “isolationist” Senate colleagues who would cut defense spending to help solve the budget deficit have abandoned the principles of conservative icon Ronald Reagan. Speaking at the conservative American Enterprise Institute late Wednesday afternoon, the junior Senator from New Hampshire said that “with the issues that… Keep reading →

WASHINGTON: Sequestration, sequestration, sequestration — that was the one note the Aerospace Industries Association struck over and over at its biggest annual public event. Flanked by AIA’s now-iconic clock counting down 27 days before the sequester destroys “two million jobs” (a disputed figure), President Marion Blakey declared: “I’m an optimist and we have to prevail.”… Keep reading →

[updated Wednesday 12/5] WASHINGTON: Top executives from four major defense and aerospace firms sent a message to Congress and the Obama administration today: the nation expects its elected leaders to lead and the well-paid executives are willing to accept higher personal and corporate taxes on the path to find a solution to the nation’s fiscal… Keep reading →

WASHINGTON: Why in the world is the Pentagon trying to develop a better beef jerky, run grocery stores, microbreweries, study flying dinosaurs and build (not tilt at) windmills? That is the question a conservative Republican senator from Oklahoma, Tom Coburn, asks in a new report — “Department of Everything” — issued today. The subtitle of… Keep reading →