A budget battle is heating up between Congress and the armed forces community. Vice Admiral Norb Ryan, president of the Military Officer’s Association of America, was Francis Rose’s guest for Pentagon Solutions. MOAA has a list of reasons why service members and their families should worry about the Obama Administration’s fiscal 2015 budget request.

The latest Quadrennial Defense Review looks a little unusual to most defense experts. Christine Wormuth, deputy under secretary of Defense for strategy, plans and force development, spoke at the Center for Strategic and International Studies about why the 2014 QDR is so different. She says it’s important to understand how the Pentagon put the QDR together.

Several senators took the unusual step today of asking for ways the administration is improving government management. Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee members praised the Office of Management and Budget for its approach to improving how the government works instead of just focusing on what went wrong. Federal News Radio’s Jason Miller is here with details on this rare occurrence.

Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson is halfway through a weeklong trek through Congress. Yesterday he testified before the House Appropriations Committee on the White House budget request for fiscal 2015. Tomorrow morning he heads to the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Homeland Security. Today’s stop was at the Senate Appropriations Committee. He tells that committee he wants to emphasize the commercial potential of the department.

The new budget request includes some initiatives to boost morale across government. One way would be to create a dashboard that managers could use to track ups and downs in morale. Federal News Radio Senior Correspondent Mike Causey has a really good and serious question.

The Defense Department says in order to stay under the budget caps Congress approved late last year, it had to make some tough decisions about its spending on military bases. Military construction and money for base upkeep both took significant hits. Federal News Radio’s DoD reporter Jared Serbu has more on the budget tradeoffs the military decided to make in the 2015 budget.

Office of Personnel Management Director Katherine Archuleta lays out six broad areas to improve her agency’s use and management of technology. Archuleta promised an IT strategic plan at her confirmation hearing. In part 1 of their interview, Archuleta and OPM CIO Donna Seymour tell Federal News Radio executive editor Jason Miller about the internal IT changes that are coming.