Air Force Cuts Mean Service Is ‘Slowly Going Out of Business’

A year has passed since Congress passed and President Obama signed into law the Budget Control Act-the legislation mandating sequestration. Funding cuts that once seemed politically remote now loom large for leaders increasingly anxious about the impact $1.2 trillion in automatic budget reductions will have upon their respective districts and states. An estimated two million…

Why We Should Cut Tri-Nation Anti-Missile Program, MEADS

Anyone who has served in the military knows there is plenty of fat to be cut in the Pentagon budget. But rather than take a “meat ax” to the budget — as Defense Secretary Panetta famously described sequestration — there are more targeted ways to reduce and reform defense spending. Whether it’s procedural inefficiencies, duplicative…

Senate Approps Keeps Global Hawks Flying; Army WIN-T Loses

WASHINGTON: The defense spending bill passed by the Senate Appropriations Committee today keeps Block 30 Global Hawk drones flying, instead of letting them be warehoused as the Air Force had planned, a congressional source confirmed to Breaking Defense. That is arguably the final flourish on Congress’s utter rejection of the Air Force’s proposed cuts in…

Delay Sequestration By Six Months; ‘We Need To Know What We’re Doing,’ Sez Sen. Feinstein

CAPITOL HILL [updated 12:40 with Feinstein, Inouye remarks and results of amendment vote]: Sequestration drama roiled an otherwise pro forma mark-up of the Senate’s defense appropriations bill this morning, with a precious flicker of bipartisanship over the need to avert the sequester soon overtaken by disagreement over the legalities of layoff notices. If the automatic…

DepSecDef Carter Outlines Sequester Impact At HASC Hearing

DepSecDef Carter @ #HASC says sequester wld mean cuts 4 F-35s, 1 P-8, 12 Strykers, 300 medium, heavy tactical vehicles CVN-78, LCS delays ColinClarkAol

No Need To Send Sequestration Layoff Notices, Sez Labor Dept.; McKeon Outraged

WASHINGTON [updated 6:45 pm with Rep. Smith and AIA comment]: The Labor Department issued guidance today stating that defense companies and other federal contractors do not need to issue layoff notices sixty days in advance of sequestration. House Armed Services Chairman Buck McKeon immediately denounced the guidance as “politically motivated,” and his staff called it…

Labor Department: No Need For Layoff Notices Before Sequester

Labor Dept saying WARN act does NOT require layoff notices re sequester: http://bit.ly/Q6urjz. Story soon @ http://aol.it/NkxTqu SydneyFreedberg

Lockheed, Boeing Gain Despite Sequester Fears

Even as Lockheed Martin chairman Robert Stevens warns of mass layoffs if sequestration hits, his company has been doing remarkably well this year, with revenue up 6 percent this quarter and earnings up 26 percent, according to an analysis by Motley Fool’s Rich Smith. Boeing has done even better, with 58 percent earnings growth, thanks…

Sequester Would Force 100,000-Troop Cut, Panetta Tells HASC

Panetta: sequestration would require getting rid of 100,000 troops – http://bit.ly/MMCbXc. Our past coverage: http://aol.it/K5YGSp SydneyFreedberg

Cyber Commands Pushing Shift From IT Workers To ‘Warriors’

CAPITOL HILL: The four service cyber commands want to move personnel and resources from routine network operations — the classic IT jobs — to online attack and defense executed with a “warrior” mentality, their senior officers told Congress yesterday afternoon. Increasingly “these men and women view themselves as warriors,” Vice Admiral Michael Rogers, chief of…

Congress Must Cut Guard Now Or Face Worse Choices Later: SecAf Donley

CAPITOL HILL: Air Force Secretary Michael Donley warned Congress today that if it blocks cuts to the Air National Guard this year, it will just be “doubling down” on cuts required in 2014 — maybe not to the Guard, but somewhere in the Air Force — even if sequestration is averted. If sequestration does take…

Cut Defense Spending? Good Idea – But Sequestration’s Not The Way

Pete Hegseth, an Army National Guard infantry officer who has served tours in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Guantanamo Bay, is a member of Concerned Veterans for America. Is it time for major cuts in U.S. defense spending? According to at least one recent poll, a staggering 76 percent of Americans surveyed believe the answer is “yes.”…

‘Our Voices Are Being Heard’ On Sequestration: AIA Chairman Hess

CAPITOL HILL: The chairman of the board of the Aerospace Industries Association, Pratt & Whitney President David Hess, expressed guarded optimism today that industry is getting through to Congress about the danger of sequestration. “We’ve been very active — Marion [Blakey, AIA’s CEO], and the AIA staff, and the member companies of AIA — [conveying]…

CEOs in Crossfire At Sequestration Hearing

CAPITOL HILL: Lockheed Martin CEO Bob Stevens and his fellow defense industry executives struggled to stay on their “sequestration kills jobs” message while they dodged repeated questions from Democrats about whether revenue increases were needed to avert the sequester. An exasperated Rep. Adam Smith, the top Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee, concluded the…