Let’s get this straight: the Defense Department and the
defense industry survived the sequester. But you’d be forgiven for
thinking otherwise, given a year of dire forecasts from the aerospace
industry that 2013 would see the decline and fall of the economy — and
with it America’s military capability.
The forecasting failure of the Aerospace Industries Association
(AIA) notwithstanding, the industry has not given up. Facing a second round of the
sequester this coming January, the halls of Congress and the media are once again
ringing with forecasts of doom. AIA CEO Marion Blakey is back on the hustings, telling
the Senate Defense Appropriations subcommittee that another round of sequester
could cut $147 billion in defense acquisition over the next five years, calling
into question “our industry’s ability to deliver these capabilities in the
future.”
Here we go again; the industry never gives up, despite some lobbyists
whining
to National Public Radio that they are somehow incapable of defending their
interests before the Congress and the public. And some members of Congress,
especially those on the defense committees, remain ever susceptible to the
pitch.
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