Rep. Howard “Buck” McKeon, the California Republican who chairs the House Armed Services Committee, is out with his latest video on the perils of impending sequestration. It’s increasingly looking like mutual Russian roulette: the GOP doesn’t want the military’s future spending plans cut by $600 billion over the coming decade …
Congress
Golden Oldie: The Day the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty Died
OK, so it lacks Don McLean’s songcraft, but it was a decade ago Wednesday that the U.S. walked away from 1972’s ABM treaty with the Soviets. Despite predictions from arms controllers that the sky would fall, not much has happened.
Sure, the Treasury is lighter by $100 billion or so, but we did that to ourselves by building a …
“There is a chance that [killing sequestration and its $600 billion in Pentagon spending cuts] could happen, particularly during a lame-duck session, that we would once again kick the can down the road, modify the law that now is in place…I don't think it's the right way to go. But to say that [there’s]…no chance that Congress would kick the can down the road would be kind of inconsistent with a hell of a lot of evidence. Not only can we kick the can down the road, but I think we have special gym shoes…”
“Lights! Camera! GAO?”
Battleland recalls when Government Accountability Office reports were issued with light-blue covers, not the dark-blue ones they’ve been sporting for a couple of decades. And when G.A.O. stood for General Accounting Office, until Congress decided that sounded too meek (GAO works only for Congress; for years reporters called it the …
The “Secret Deal”
Rep. Mike Turner, the Ohio Republican who chairs the armed services committee’s strategic subcommittee, remains alarmed by President Obama’s hot-mic chit-chat with then-Russian President Dmitry Medvedev. In March, Obama told Medvedev that Obama would have “more flexibility” if he’s re-elected to hammer out a new arms-control …
Sequestration or Not, Defense Budget to Continue Its Decline
While many in Washington assume that Congress will solve sequestration by the end of the year–the problem Congress created when the Super Committee failed–recent comments by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) indicate …
Countdown to Sequestration: Seven Months to Go
Over the weekend, the nation moved within seven months of End of the World Wednesday. That would be January 2, assuming Congress and the President can’t come up with $1.2 trillion in budget reductions over the next decade. Absent a deal, another $600 billion in defense cuts, would be piled atop the $487 billion already carved from the …
A Peek at Pentagon Pork: A Taxpayers’ Guide
The House Armed Services Committee (HASC) and the Defense Subcommittee of the House Appropriations Committee (sometimes called the HAC-D) have reported their separate defense bills to the House of Representatives (both bills purport to address both spending and policy). The House has already debated and passed the HASC’s …
Secret Plan to Get Congress to Approve the Pentagon Budget?
“We Pause for This Commercial…Sale”
Legislators are fighting over every single dollar in this year’s defense budget, although saving billions could be as simple as changing a few words in a contracting statute. And believe it — or not — the Pentagon is the good …
House Pushes for East Coast Missile Shield
The House has approved a $643 billion defense-spending bill for 2013 that’s $3.7 billion more than the Obama Administration, and its Pentagon, is seeking. That’s just about the same amount the Congressional Budget Office …
“Historic New Missions” That Aren’t New and Hardly Historic
Stop the presses! The Pentagon’s just-issued annual report on China says its military is expanding into “new historic missions” beyond its traditional role of self-defense. The press is already highlighting that alarming phrase.
Some are sure to see these as “new hysteric missions” and contend they require increased U.S. …
Don’t Watch This Video!
…if you’re interested in a calm and reasoned assessment of the threats facing the U.S. by Foreign Affairs’ Micah Zenko. But if you prefer threat inflation, switch over to C-Span to watch the House debate the 2013 defense budget. Turn it up real loud.
