In a refreshing break from tradition, the House Appropriations Committee approved a $967 billion discretionary spending plan that would stay within the fiscal year 2014 sequestration spending levels. The measure would protect defense from further cuts and instead deliver the total savings through reductions to domestic discretionary programs. It was …
Last Wednesday, off the coast of Kauai, Hawaii, the Navy cruiser USS Lake Erie conducted a successful test of the next-generation missile defense weapon, engaging and destroying a dummy target warhead that had separated from a short-range attacking rocket. The Standard Missile-3 (SM-3) is designed to seek and kill both …
The Congressional Budget Office’s (CBO) official score of President Obama’s budget shows in numbers a vision for economic decline in America. The President imposes a tax increase totaling $1.1 trillion (and a net increase of about $1 trillion), some components of which would directly hit middle-class and lower-income Americans. On …
Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel has announced that the 800,000 civilian Department of Defense (DOD) employees scheduled for furloughs will take only 11 days without pay. This amounts to half the originally planned furlough of 22 days for civilians in the DOD. While this reduction may keep the DOD operating …
The U.S. Air Force recently stripped 17 officers of their authority to control and launch intercontinental-range ballistic missiles (ICBMs) after inspections indentified potential problems that could endanger U.S. national security. Although the incident did not impact security and operational readiness of U.S. ICBM forces, the Air Force is right to …
The United States should leave the hollow force where it belongs—in the past. Defense budget cuts and inadequate strategy are damaging readiness. Heritage’s Baker Spring, along with Colonels Ruchard Dunn and Kerry Kachejian, opened “Protect America Month” at The Heritage Foundation last week, speaking about the potential for the U.S. …
A recent report illustrates how miles of red tape are hindering the nation’s ability to properly fund and equip the military. The Army Science Board’s report on the strategic direction of the U.S. Army’s science and technology (S&T) efforts warned that the Army’s 2012 S&T Master Plan “lacks an S&T …
After more than a decade of intensive ground combat in Iraq and Afghanistan, the U.S. military is facing a security environment very different from that which defined the first years of the 21st century. The threats facing the United States abroad are increasingly maritime in nature, whether it’s China’s aggressive …
Reports that the federal government will put a little bit of money toward the massive federal debt for the first time in six years make for an interesting tidbit, but Washington’s spending and debt problem is only getting bigger. The Wall Street Journal reports, “The Treasury Department said that it …
