DoD BREATHES A SIGH OF RELIEF AS THE SENATE PASSES THE BUDGET DEAL: “The
Senate approved the agreement with a 64 to 36 vote and the legislation
now heads to President Barack Obama for his signature,” reports
POLITICO’s Seung Min Kim. https://politi.co/1bR45fD
The deal saves the Pentagon from sequestration in fiscal 2014 and
2015 and provides defense officials with greater budget certainty,
something they’ve been begging for. Now, it’s time for the
appropriations committees to get to work on an omnibus package of
spending bills for the various agencies.
— REFRESHER COURSE – WHAT DOES IT MEAN FOR DEFENSE? The
Stimson Center’s Russell Rumbaugh put out this analysis of the
legislation last week, but it’s still a helpful primer on the defense
implications. https://bit.ly/1bI0pxn
He explains that the budget deal softens the fall of defense
spending, but by no means does away with it. The base budget is still
going to fall to about about $500 billion in real terms, but it’s not
going to hit that low point until fiscal year 2016.
“That shift significantly eases the implementation of further reductions by spreading them over more years,” Rumbaugh writes.
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