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The House passed its version of the annual defense authorization bill Thursday, while the Senate's is still a work in progress. Both versions mostly shun DoD's proposals to cut costs during sequestration.
A proposed amendment to the House version of the annual bill setting policy for the Defense Department would preemptively protect DoD employees paid through working-capital funds from potential furloughs. The measure was introduced Monday by Reps. Tom Cole (R-Okla.) and Derek Kilmer (D-Wash.).
In this edition of Inside the Reporter's Notebook, Executive Editor Jason Miller shares news and buzz about the IT and acquisition communities.
Sen. Jon Tester (D-Mont.), chairman of the Senate Subcommittee on the Efficiency and Effectiveness of Federal Programs and the Federal Workforce, hosted a hearing Tuesday to discuss the low morale of federal employees and explore possible solutions for agencies seeking to improve it.
"Inside the DoD's Reporter's Notebook" is biweekly feature focused on news about the Defense Department and defense community as gathered by Federal News Radio DoD Reporter Jared Serbu.
In a special report, The Government Shutdown: Six Months Later, Federal News Radio checks back in with some of the companies it talked to in October to find out what long-term effects the work stoppage had on them. Overall, large and small contractors say they've lost some revenue and are seeing delays in contract awards and solicitations.
Members of Congress aren't happy with the Air Force's proposal to cut entire fleets of aircraft out of its inventory. But the service insists it's the only way to comply with the budget caps Congress created, and the alternatives would be far more painful.
Following a year of widespread budget uncertainty, federal contract spending fell by 11 percent, according to a new analysis by Bloomberg Government. All told, agency contract spending tumbled from $516.3 billion in fiscal 2012 to $462.1 billion last year, the report found.
This week on AFGE's Inside Government, Frank Clemente, executive director of Americans for Tax Fairness discusses the realities of tax reform; Bill Press of the Bill Press Show talks about the Affordable Care Act and its impact on the midterm elections, Union Radio and sequestration; Katherine McFate, president and CEO of the Center for Effective Government examines the impact of current federal funding levels; and, AFGE National President J. David Cox explains why AFGE is advocating for a 4 percent pay increase for government employees.
Military officials say overseas contingency operations dollars are vital to ongoing operations around the world, even after the wars end. All the services tell the House Armed Services Committee that OCO funding is helping with readiness and maintenance challenges.
The Army says it is now replacing funds in its readiness accounts that were depleted when cuts under sequestration first kicked in a year ago. But last year's readiness problems are likely to repeat in 2016 and beyond if Congress allows the automatic Defense cuts in current law to persist.
An update about how robotic, unmanned vehicles will augment brigades of the future.
The Air Force says it won't fully recover from its readiness shortfalls for another decade.
Air Force officials say their service already was facing readiness issues because of the high operational tempo of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. But sequestration worsened the problems, and continuing the budget caps will set back a readiness recovery.