#Defense

By Rebecca Williams A viable plan to reduce our country’s mounting deficits and debt will be built on painful choices that include revenue increases and cuts to all government spending, including entitlements and defense. With such thorny issues at stake, it…

With the 2011 appropriations bills finally complete, the House turned its attention to the 2012 bills last week. Appropriations Committee Chairman Hal Rogers (R-Ky.) set the goal of completing the committee's work by the August recess to permit the full…

Projected federal deficits are so large that Congress should look far beyond the non-defense spending on which it has heavily focused in recent weeks.In a guest commentary on ABC.com, Concord Coalition Executive Director Robert L. Bixby notes that bipartisan groups…

WASHINGTON -- The Concord Coalition today applauded the call by President Obama to begin high-level, bipartisan negotiations on a comprehensive plan to tackle federal deficits and the country’s long-term fiscal challenges. While there is still a big gap in specificity…

In a speech to the Council on Foreign Relations, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton last week called the debt level “a national security threat” that sends “a message of weakness internationally.” The debt, Clinton said, “undermines our capacity to act in…

Defense Secretary Robert Gates forged ahead this week with more cost-cutting and efficiency efforts at the Pentagon, providing a good example for other government leaders to set better budget priorities. Some of the measures he announced Monday have enough bite,…

Last month I participated in a conference of mostly military officials and national security experts at the Naval War College in Newport, RI. The conference title was “Economics and Security: Resourcing National Priorities.” (more…)

Holding up Dwight D. Eisenhower as a model, Defense Secretary Robert Gates is urging the American military to cut bureaucracy, improve its efficiency and “make every dollar count” as the country struggles with its fiscal challenges. Pentagon reform is critical, Gates…