I wrote my July Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists column on the Obama administration’s disappointing budget request for nuclear terrorism prevention programs at the National Nuclear Security Administration. Here’s an excerpt Despite the reductions to c…
Quote of the Day: Major Cost Discovery Edition
A senior Pentagon official describes the reaction of Pentagon analysts upon discovering that the cost of the B61 Life Extension Program could be $10 billion, $4 billion more than the National Nuclear Security Administration’s latest estimate.
Industry Execs Say Sequestration is bad but Not the End of the World
The Budget Control Act, passed last summer by both parties as a mechanism to force compromise on debt reduction, is now being used by politicians and the defense industry for political gain. Mitt Romney’s campaign has said that sequestration will “saddle the military with a trillion dollars in cuts, severely shrink our force structure, and impair our ability to meet and deter threats.” He places the blame for these cuts on the Obama administration, conveniently forgetting that Republicans voted for sequestration and ignoring the fact that sequestration would be avoidable if the GOP would be willing to compromise on revenue increases.
Turner Goes Loco on Defense Appropriations Bill; Dicks Fights Back
On July 19 the House completed floor action on and passed the FY 2013 Defense Appropriations Bill (H.R. 5856) by a vote of 326-90. Click here for our review of the Committee version of the bill. Click here for lessons learned from the bill.
Congress Can’t Avoid its Budget Responsibility
Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle agree that sequestration in its current form is flawed, but the argument has remained largely political. Rep. Adam Smith outlined the irony of the current conservative position on sequestration, saying they “ignored both their own role in creating sequestration in the first place and the fact that their stubborn resistance to any increase in revenues is the biggest reason why sequestration is even a possibility…