Even if Congress somehow averts sequestration, the defense industry is headed for layoffs and, at best, anemic growth, and the much-vaunted surge in foreign military sales won’t turn that around. If the automatic cuts known as sequestration do take effect as currently scheduled in January, the impact would be “a devastating blow.” That’s the bleak… Keep reading →

PENTAGON: After a year of pleading, cajoling, wheedling, warning and whining, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta has clearly reached the end of his rope when it comes to sequestration and Congress. Panetta and other senior defense officials have repeatedly argued the country must avoid sequestration because any deals would mean instability over time and thus pose… Keep reading →

WASHINGTON: Even with Congress in recess until after the November elections, the Pentagon remains focused on avoiding sequestration — which would require Congressional action before January — rather than planning the least painful way to implement the automatic budget cuts. “There isn’t a plan. I know this frustrates people, but we haven’t done detailed planning,”… Keep reading →

CAPITOL HILL: Hours after a House Armed Services Committee on sequestration elicited bitter laugh after bitter laugh from a roomful of observers while the two sides threw figurative spitballs at each other, the Senate almost, but not quite, passed a Continuing Resolution to keep the U.S. government funded for another six months. Sen. Daniel Inouye,… Keep reading →

UPDATED: Boeing statement added NATIONAL HARBOR: Boeing has been plowing through its KC-46 management reserve for much of the last six months, according to a senior Air Force official. “The burn rate of their management reserve rate has gone up significantly over the last six months or so,” the official told reporters today. While this… Keep reading →

WASHINGTON: The stalemate over sequestration just got deeper today with horribly predictable political posturing over the tardy release of the Office of Management and Budget’s congressionally-mandated report on how the drastic automatic cuts would be implemented. The 394-page report set the stage for the mutual denunciations in its preamble, declaring House Republican proposals to avert… Keep reading →

PANAMA CITY, FLORIDA: As budgets tighten, the Navy and Marine Corps are looking at a host of ways to save, from installing LED lights on ships to slowing vehicle purchases to centralizing power on the Chief of Naval Operations’ staff. “We are entering a fiscal Valley Forge, a time of austerity,” said Ariane Whittemore, the… Keep reading →

NATIONAL PRESS CLUB: As war funding goes away, Marines must learn to live with “good enough” in an era of austerity, Commandant James Amos declared today at the National Press Club, saying that even top-priority programs like the F-35B Joint Strike Fighter and the V-22 Osprey tilt-rotor face the budget axe. Even without sequestration, the… Keep reading →

WASHINGTON: In a poll sure to be read with some trepidation on Capitol Hill, a Harris poll has found that almost 80 percent of “likely voters in critical battleground states” want lawmakers to do something to avoid the automatic budget cuts known as sequestration. The poll, commissioned by the Aerospace Industries Association as part of… Keep reading →

WASHINGTON: Sequestration would force the Defense Department and other federal agencies to lay off workers long before the defense industry had to, said a report released today by the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments. Though big defense contractors, led by Lockheed Martin, have warned that the threat of sequestration might require them to send… Keep reading →