CAPITOL HILL: “I think this is a papering-over of their dismantling of the Navy,” House Armed Services seapower subcommittee chairman Randy Forbes told me this afternoon. “They aren’t having the courage or the straightforwardness or transparency to call it what it is.” Between the Pentagon’s proposed reduction in warships currently in the water and its… Keep reading →

CAPITOL HILL: Sen. Carl Levin made very clear to his colleagues just what is at stake in the inevitable  shout-fest over benefits and compensation. It is the $31 billion saved in the proposed budget in reductions to the rate of pay growth, boosted Tricare payments, and consolidations in the healthcare program, the 5 percent reduction… Keep reading →

NEWSEUM: At first it looks like pure wishful thinking: The administration’s 2015 budget plan assumes the automatic budget cuts known as sequestration don’t go back into effect in 2016, when the stay of execution known as the Balanced Budget Act runs out. In fact, the Pentagon’s No. 2 official argued today, the administration is taking… Keep reading →

WASHINGTON: As the House and Senate budget committees confer behind closed doors, the Pentagon’s top budgeteer says that even though he doesn’t know what’s going on he still has hope. “I’ve got my fingers crossed,” Robert Hale, the Defense Department comptroller, told the Defense One conference here this afternoon. “I remain at least cautiously optimistic… Keep reading →

THE PENTAGON: That question is what America’s allies asked Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel and other senior national security leaders over the last few weeks as they watched agog as the world’s biggest economy and military came perilously close to systemic failure. “Our allies are asking questions: Can we rely on our partnership with America? Will… Keep reading →

WASHINGTON: This summer’s unpaid leave for federal workers was unpleasant enough. If the government shuts down October 1st, though, this fall’s furloughs are just going to be crazy. A patchwork of legal exceptions and grey areas will not only prevent most federal civilians from getting work done but, indirectly, keep many military servicemembers from getting… Keep reading →

How will the Defense Department handle the all-but-inevitable government shutdown on October 1st? In a few minutes, Pentagon comptroller Robert Hale will lay out the answers for the media — and for hundreds of thousands of anxious civil service employees, many of whom will be watching via webcast. What he’ll be briefing people on is… Keep reading →

CAPITOL HILL: Even amidst the furor over sexual assault and NSA leaker Edward Snowden, the budget cuts known as the sequester dominated this morning’s discussion before the Senate Appropriations Committee. Testifying before SAC’s subcommittee on defense, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel and Joint Chiefs chairman Gen. Martin Dempsey both pleaded for, in Hagel’s words, “time and flexibility.” The… Keep reading →

WASHINGTON: Congress seems increasingly resigned to sequestration cuts and base closures, ideas which once met fierce rejection on Capitol Hill. That’s the counterintuitive takeaway from Chuck Hagel’s first hearing as Defense Secretary on the 2014 budget request, one largely overtaken by events. The weary notes that legislators struck on the budget probably had something to… Keep reading →

PENTAGON: “Army Has Biggest Problem.” That’s it. Pentagon Comptroller Robert Hale’s official briefing slides for today’s big budget roll-out couldn’t be blunter. Hale has made this point before, but in case anyone imagined Congress rescued the Army when it passed a belated 2013 spending bill last month, the budget presentation today made clear the biggest… Keep reading →