'Back-Door' Base Closures
Biden Talks Loss With Fallen Troops' Families
Neely Out at GSA
More USPS Buyouts
Gimme My Discount! Deals for Feds
Buyout Watch: Who's Offering What
AUTHOR ARCHIVES
It's Time to Try Two-year budgets
August 1, 2001 everal studies have suggested that Congress consider a biennial budget process, whereby the appropriations bills that fund the government's discretionary programs would be produced and passed every two years rather than annually. The current process is breaking down in the face of surpluses. Procedural changes are needed, and biennial budgeting ...
A Strong Military Needs a Strong Vision
February 1, 2001 n his long delayed victory speech this past December, George W. Bush listed five issues where he felt there was remarkable consensus between the two parties engaged in the hard fought 2000 election. One was a strong military. As a defense adviser to the Gore campaign, I can tell you ...
A Decade's Bills Are Coming Due
September 1, 2000 letters@govexec.com he latest federal budget estimates are both encouraging and impressive. In June, the Office of Management and Budget released its latest 10-year forecast, predicting the overall federal budget surplus between 2001 and 2010 to be $4.2 trillion, up from the $2.9 trillion OMB estimated in February. A few days ...
The Campaign That Nobody Discusses
April 1, 2000 letters@govexec.com or those concerned about national defense, its virtual absence as an issue in the presidential campaign is troubling. During the primary races, Democratic hopefuls Vice President Al Gore and Sen. Bill Bradley declared their support for current defense spending levels and the need to modernize the force, but they ...
Separate Definitions Hobble 'Joint' Forces
February 1, 2000 t a recent policy seminar in Washington, Sen. Joseph Lieberman, D-Conn., la-mented the military services' lack of progress in improving their ability to operate as a synergistic whole. Lieberman, one of the most respected members of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said he did not see "a real joint process ...
Size Military to Strategy, Not Vice Versa
December 1, 1999 ecent comments by public officials and leaked drafts have created ambiguity about what our national military strategy actually is. In some instances involving foreign policy and military options, ambiguity has great merit, but it has considerably less to recommend it as an approach for internal planning. When it comes to ...
Budgeting Should Not Be an Emergency
July 1, 1999 dding funds to the Defense budget under the guise of emergency appropriations is increasingly in vogue, for several reasons. First has been the heavy drain placed on military forces by unexpected contingencies in Iraq and the Balkans. Second has been the use of military forces in responding to a series ...
Defense Beat
April 1, 1999 ince its introduction in 1961, the Pentagon's Planning, Programming and Budgeting System (PPBS) has been a target of constant criticism. For many, the process is too complex, too centrally directed and too bureaucratically contentious. In the 1998 Defense authorization bill, Congress directed the Pentagon to study ways the system might ...
