Arnold Punaro

The House Armed Services Committee wants to expand the $40,000 Voluntary Separation Incentive Pay for DoD civilians to 2021.

The Senate Armed Services Personnel Subcommittee is preparing its provisions for the 2018 defense authorization bill and this week it heard from some former top DoD officials. Family life seemed to be the bottom line for a lot of military issues. Employees want to be able to move between the civilian and military world, they want quality childcare for their children and they want their spouses to be happy and be able to work where they are stationed.

DoD and Congress have been working on trimming the civilian workforce for years. Will the new OMB memo do anything different?

The top military leaders of each branch say the cumulative effect of years of continuing resolutions is taking its toll. But what makes 2017 so much worse than all the other years?

The Senior Executive Service, National Security Council and more will see staff reductions if the President signs the bill into law.

A new report singles out DoD’s workforce, TRICARE and service contracts as areas of future change.

Former Pentagon officials told lawmakers that the Defense Department’s oversized workforce is not only hurting the budget, but also policy decisions.

Defense Department spending rises every year, even after sequestration. But the fighting force is shrinking. In effect, DoD is doing less with more. Retired Marine Corps Maj. Gen. Arnold Punaro, head of the Punaro Group, has been saying on Capitol Hill that Congress and the Pentagon need to tackle their built-in costs. The DOD Comptroller recently said the department would get 96 percent of what it asked for in 2017. Federal Drive with Tom Temin asked Punaro if that’s a useful metric.

The Defense Department is spending more money and getting less out of it, defense analysts told Congress.

The 114th Congress convenes next week, and the budget moves they should make early on are clear to a number of defense experts. One of them is retired U.S. Marine Corps Maj. Gen. Arnold Punaro, the chief executive officer of the Punaro Group. In his Top 3 for 2015, he tells In Depth with Francis Rose why dealing with the sequester, the debt and the deficit should be the top priority.