Congress comes back after Labor Day and its 535 lawmakers will face one of the most convoluted legislative tangles in recent memory. While there is no clear endgame yet, all parties know what must be done and — roughly — by what time. Up first is the resolution of disapproval for the administration’s Iranian nuclear deal,… Keep reading →

CAPITOL HILL: The Navy’s already acknowledged that building the next nuclear missile submarine will bust its shipbuilding budget. Now, the Pentagon’s top weapons buyer has admitted that the Ohio Replacement Program could be a bill too far for the entire nuclear weapons enterprise across the Departments of Defense and Energy — even if Congress repeals… Keep reading →

CAPITOL HILL: Tensions within the GOP over the mandatory budget caps set by the Budget Control Act burst into the open today. The chairman of the House Appropriations defense subcommittee repeatedly warned colleagues and the leaders of the Air Force this morning that they had no choice and must live within the Budget Control Act’s spending limits. Then,… Keep reading →

Bob Hale regularly demonstrated his better qualities during testimony before Congress, delivering highly complex facts and judgments about the Defense Department’s spending and budgets to the public with a knowing humor delivered with the sort of gravelly voice you’d expect from one of those old country lawyers.  Hale served as DoD comptroller from 2009 to 2014, and, before… Keep reading →

WASHINGTON: Nomination hearings are never just about the nominee. But today’s Senate lovefest for Ash Carter was remarkably dominated by two men who weren’t in the room: President Obama — in whose defense Carter was actually pretty tepid — and King Abdullah II of Jordan. The Obama White House has simultaneously “micromanag[ed]” the military and… Keep reading →

PENTAGON: We won’t know much about it, but protecting America’s military satellites and the data they gather and share is a key target of the 2016 service budget. Several senior Pentagon budget wallahs declined in the top-level budget briefings today to answer specific questions about the spending levels of what is known as Space Situational Awareness (SSA) and… Keep reading →

UPDATED: Adds HASC Chair And Ranking Reactions; Quotes Deputy Secretary Bob Work On Congress, Budget, Strategy PENTAGON: The Obama administration wants to increase the money spent on weapons in 2016 by $14.1 billion over what Congress approved in December. It’s a rare move by an administration to increase procurement so vigorously. In fact, the two largest… Keep reading →

SAN DIEGO: How much Kentucky bourbon will it take for President Barack Obama and presumptive Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to come to an agreement of some kind on how to alleviate sequestration? A few drinks in the Oval Office? A bottle between them up in McConnell’s Capitol eyrie? And what about those new Republicans… Keep reading →

WASHINGTON: Summer is done. Elections loom. Senators and representatives spent August wining and dining donors and kissing babies in pursuit of a job. In the next few days most of Capitol Hill’s workforce will return from the summer recess and most efforts will be focused on winning reelection and ensuring the primacy of whichever tribe one… Keep reading →

CAPITOL HILL: House Majority Leader Eric Cantor isn’t physically absent from here yet, but he is close to politically dead after last night’s stunning political defeat by a little known Tea Party supporter from the southern Virginia constituency. I spoke to half a dozen close watchers of defense politics this morning and all but one… Keep reading →