The Pentagon could be placing itself at further risk by refusing to plan for the draconian spending cuts mandated by the 2011 Budget Control Act’s sequestration clause, said Todd Harrison, a senior fellow for defense budget studies at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments. Harrison outlined four options for tackling the issue during a budget briefing with reporters in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday, just days before the release of the Pentagon’s Fiscal 2013 spending proposal. The first is to simply let sequestration happen—DOD’s current path. The second option specifically targets cuts through a budget amendment that Congress would have to approve before the January 2013 deadline for sequestration taking effect. The third option—a short-term approach—is to utilize war funding to soften the blow. Finally, Harrison proposed backloading the spending cuts by reducing the budget 2.2 percent each year over the next 10 years. Continue
A provision in the fiscal 2025 defense policy bill will require the Defense Department to include the military occupational specialty of service members who die by suicide in its annual report on suicide deaths, though it remains to be seen how much data the department will actually disclose.