72 Hours for Defense Appropriations Bill
While debt limit and health care reform provisions are at least being discussed in the media, it is the laws we can't see, that have never been debated in the open, that are the most dangerous threat.
While debt limit and health care reform provisions are at least being discussed in the media, it is the laws we can't see, that have never been debated in the open, that are the most dangerous threat.
Gordon Adams | Posted 12.03.2009 | World
While costs will not dictate how we pay for the Obama surge in Afghanistan, they will be a subject of strong debate in the Congress.
Winslow T. Wheeler | Posted 11.20.2009 | Politics
As the Pentagon's $300 billion F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program continues to unravel, it is useful to remind ourselves who told us all of this would happen, and who might now be making foolish prognostications.
Dean Baker | Posted 11.09.2009 | Business
Standard economic models do show that measures designed to reduce green house gasses by raising energy prices will lead to some cost in terms of slower economic growth. However, scare stories never put it in any context.
Winslow T. Wheeler | Posted 11.09.2009 | Politics
It's not that DOD is flunking audits. You flunk an audit when you track the money and find it was not spent as intended. DOD cannot track the money; the Department of Defense is unauditable.
Aaron E. Carroll | Posted 11.03.2009 | Politics
People are saying that health care reform is going to break the bank. No. Health care costs are what might bankrupt us. I am all in favor of reducing those, but railing against the cost of reform while ignoring all the rest is willful ignorance.
Winslow T. Wheeler | Posted 10.20.2009 | Politics
After the practice was publicly identified in recent debates, the Congressional Armed Services Committees seem to have reduced one of their own more obnoxious, anti-defense, pro-pork activities.
Winslow T. Wheeler | Posted 10.14.2009 | Politics
After a long fight, Gates and President Obama ultimately prevailed this summer in ending further F-22 production. Game over. Right? Anyone who thinks so doesn't appreciate the staying power of Congress' porkers.
The Huffington Post | Jenna Staul | Posted 10.09.2009 | Business
The New York Times reports Friday that due to Obama administration cutbacks in spending on weapons systems, defense manufacturer Boeing has intensifie...
The Huffington Post | Arthur Delaney | Posted 10.09.2009 | Politics
Earmark watchdog Taxpayers for Common Sense is barking: The 18 members of the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense will bring home 60 percent...
Winslow T. Wheeler | Posted 10.08.2009 | Politics
In 30 years on Capitol Hill, I never saw Congress mangle the defense budget as badly as this year. Despite that, I see signs that we might be on the cusp of a change for the better.
AP | By ANDREW TAYLOR | Posted 10.06.2009 | Politics
WASHINGTON -- As President Barack Obama weighs major shifts in strategy in the deteriorating mission in Afghanistan, the Senate on Tuesday passed a bi...
Joe Cirincione | Posted 09.03.2009 | Politics
If Secretary Gates is looking to save money and make us safer, there is no better place to start than by eliminating the security liabilities we promote in our arsenal of nuclear clunkers.
HuffingtonPost.com | Sahil Kapur | Posted 08.23.2009 | Politics
The military-industrial complex may have lost the battle over funding for F-22s, but defense contractors continue to prevail in the fight to finance p...
Robert Scheer | Posted 08.22.2009 | Politics
There are 187 F-22s that have yet to fly a single combat mission. The news that Congress might stop production of this high-profit weapons system is a considerable victory for logic.
Brandon Friedman | Posted 08.13.2009 | Politics
That we would spend as much money in an hour ($44,300) flying a nearly useless fighter jet as we do paying critical personnel to fight the war on the ground is obscene.
Avelino Maestas | Posted 08.10.2009 | Home
We're still a long way from putting data about Congress at your fingertips. OpenCongress and Congrelate are both cutting edge tools, but information like committee votes is still buried in PDFs.
Tom Andrews | Posted 07.26.2009 | Politics
For those concerned the U.S. is becoming mired in a military quagmire in Afghanistan there was good news and bad news on the House floor this afternoon.
Robert Koehler | Posted 07.26.2009 | Politics
The problem was not simply gaps or "lack of balance" in the reportage, but the utter lack of a larger context: some hint that military planners are accountable to more than themselves.
Huffington Post | Nicholas Graham | Posted 07.25.2009 | Politics
Jon Soltz, Chairman of VoteVets.org and a frequent HuffPost blogger, faced off against Georgia Congressman Phil Gingrey (R) over funding for the extre...
Lorelei Kelly | Posted 07.24.2009 | Politics
Anybody who has lived with an addict knows about denial. So it goes with Congress and defense spending. Case in point this week is the F-22, a gold-plated Cold War barnacle.
Jon Soltz | Posted 07.23.2009 | Politics
Congress is about to throw $369 million (on a down-payment of $2 billion) for a dozen F-22 fighter jets that even the Pentagon doesn't want.
HuffingtonPost.com | Jason Linkins | Posted 07.19.2009 | Media
I have to say that I greet today's decision by the Washington Post to fire blogger and columnist Dan Froomkin to be both sad and alarming. Froomkin h...
Mark Weisbrot | Posted 07.12.2009 | Politics
Obama and the House Democrats can't seem to muscle the votes they need to pass a $108 billion appropriation for the IMF. The stakes are high for both the administration, and the world.
AP | JULIE PACE | Posted 06.22.2009 | Politics
WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama granted the Pentagon new power to rein in wasteful defense spending Friday, a change he said was long overdu...
Jake Brewer | Posted 12.16.2009 | Politics