Pentagon says it will use its limited budget flexibility to compensate for unexpected war costs, not to blunt sequestration. Services continue to warn Congress about how budget cuts are impacting readiness.
Deputy Defense Secretary Ashton Carter discussed the budget challenges facing the Defense Department and how Pentagon leaders plan to manage through the "era of fiscal uncertainty" in a speech at the National Press Club May 7. Francis played highlights from Carter's speech on Pentagon Solutions.
The Pentagon's acquisition chief said he's planning day-to-day, not year-to-year because of sequestration's indiscriminate cuts and political uncertainty over DoD's budget. In 2014, there will be more opportunities to prioritize, but spending reductions also will lead to cancellation of contracts and downsizing of the military and civilian workforce.
With sequestration now in effect, the Defense Department says it will have to begin to make decisions that cross the threshold between "reversible" cuts to military capability and those that will have long-lasting impacts.
Obama administration officials are painting a bleak picture of how federal agencies would fare under sequestration, the automatic budget cuts slated to go into effect in two weeks. The Senate Appropriations Committee heard testimony from several Obama administration officials about the consequences of the cuts, which are set to take effect March 1. However, Danny Werfel, controller of the Office of Management and Budget, emphasized to the committee that employee furloughs would not be immediate.
Among the warnings the military's top uniformed officers delivered to the Senate Tuesday: Half of Marine Corps units will fall below readiness standards by the end of the year, the Army will have to curtail training for 80 percent of its ground forces and shipyards are already becoming short-staffed because of DoD's hiring freeze.
Defense Deputy Secretary Ashton Carter told DoD components Thursday to draw up plans for full-year continuing resolution, plus sequestration. The approach to deal with across-the-board cuts would be to freeze civilian hiring, cut training, travel and conferences and reduce business technology expenditures.
Federal News Radio Executive Editor Jason Miller live-tweeted the remarks from Deputy Defense Secretary Ashton Carter and Undersecretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics Frank Kendall who unveiled the new acquisition strategy.
No more motivational speakers, musicians or promotional swag. The Defense Department is banning entertainment-related expenses at its conferences, according to a new memo from Deputy Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter.
On the In Depth show blog, you can listen to the interviews, find more information about the guests on the show each day and links to additional resources.
Agencies should not change their spending plans for this year or next, but need to start assessing which programs would be impacted by automatic sequestration cuts if Congress doesn't cancel them, OMB acting Director Jeff Zients told Congress Wednesday.
With election season in full swing, the Defense Department has published a a list of Dos and Don'ts for military voters participating in the November election, according to an article on Army.mil.
Legislation requiring Defense Department to disclose budget-cutting contingency plans would be attached to 'every bill that walks'
Defense Deputy Secretary Ashton Carter said for every dollar lawmakers add to the military's budget or for every program they continue that the Pentagon wants to cancel, it requires cuts elsewhere. He also called sequestration irrational and said DoD is not planning for it.
A year and a half after embarking on a strategy designed to get more bang for DoD's acquisition bucks, the Pentagon is still struggling to instill the idea that programs should be managed to what they should cost, rather than what they cost today.