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Thursday, October 1, 2009
C-17: Score one for the Congress
"You can't win 'em all" or maybe "let's throw
'em a bone" are no doubt what they are saying in the White House and on the Pentagon's E-Ring over yesterday's Senate
decision (in an overwhelming and bipartisan 64-34 vote, including all of the Democratic Senate leadership) to sustain funding
for ten new, unrequested Boeing C-17 airlifters.
As these pages noted last Friday, the White House saw the writing on the wall and the votes on the table last week as it pertains to the C-17 airlifter and
decided not to threaten a veto of the bill over the addition of the $2.5 billion. Indeed, the Administration's take on the C-17 add is that if the White House gets what it wants regarding everything
else -- i.e, termination of F-22, Presidential helo, JSF second engine and a host of other programs -- it can look the
other way on the C-17 and allow the Congress to save a bit of face.
Not surprisingly, however, Senator John
McCain (R-Arizona) is not so philosophical about the issue, characterizing the decision to take money from O&M accounts
to buy unneeded aircraft as "really egregious" and vowing to continue to stop the measure as the bill moves
to final Senate approval. Not stopping at slamming his colleagues for the pork, McCain called on President Obama to take a stand on the issue -- and to veto the Senate's bill -- if he wishes
to preserve his chance to rein in earmarking and reform defense acquisition. Said Senator McCain -- perhaps absent an
update on what has transpired with the F-22 and the second engine programs -- "We will be sending a signal to every lobbyist
in this town -- and there are thousands -- that if you lobby hard enough and if you've got enough subcontractors, you can
do anything."
Monday, September 28, 2009
McChrystal clear - Fight to win in AfghanistanAccording to General Stanley McChrystal, the U.S. and NATO Commander in Afghanistan, 40,000 additional troops
-- beyond the roughly 47,000 U.S. troops already in the country -- will be needed to address a seriously deteriorating situation
and avoid failure in Afghanistan.
After his bleak, confidential assessment leaked last week in the Washington Post, and after a candid interview on Sunday's 60 Minutes, Gen. McChrystal has placed himself at the center of a robust, renewed debate in Washington
and across the country over the commitment of U.S. lives and resources that stabilizing Afghanistan will require.
McChrystal, who claims to have spoken with President Obama but once since the President assumed office, is said to
believe that 40,000 additional troops -- twice what the President had planned -- will be required to win the war by securing
cities, clearing the countryside of Taliban fighters and rebuilding the nation. This stark assessment and pressure from the
military to escalate U.S. involvement in the country is a problem for the President, who faces an public eager to bring U.S.
forces home from Iraq and overwhelmingly opposed to escalating U.S. presence in Afghanistan. Here's hoping that Mr. Obama
will back Gen. McChrystal and the brave men and women of our Armed Forces.
Sunday, September 27, 2009
Mr. Chairman -- if they could engage in a fair competition, we wouldn't need earmarks...
Citing an obscure document called the Constitution and a quaint concept
of governance called balance of power, these pages have defended vigorously the prerogative of the Congress to earmark appropriations.
While earmarks have, unarguably, been abused in recent years and needed transparency of the process has resulted, the notion
of earmarking -- Congress exercising its Constitutionally-granted responsibility over the Government's purse strings by
tweaking the budget at the margins -- has been unduly maligned.
In a document released on Friday, House Appropriations Committee (HAC) Chairman
David Obey (D-Wisconsin) underscores the successful reforming of the process -- that every Member must now announce all of
his/her earmark requests and declare that he/she has no financial interest in the matter. Chairman Obey also notes,
righteously, that he and his HAC colleagues insisted that all earmarks designed for for-profit entities be subject to
a competitive bidding process moving forward. While Senate Appropriators refused to consent to this demand for the FY10
bill, Mr. Obey reports that agreement had been reached that this -- competition for all for-profit earmarks -- will be the
law of the land during the FY11 budget mark-up process and moving forward.
In his release Chairman Obey boasts
that "in this years bills we have cut the dollar amount of earmarks by 50%.... a strange boast, it seems, from a
Committee (and body) whose job it is to review and refine the request of the Executive Branch. Chairman Obey further
notes, oddly, that "we still allow [for-profit] entities to be named [in the earmarks], so we can help, for instance,
small businesses get a foot in the door so that they can be noticed by federal agencies which all too often simply notice
people with whom they are familiar in their inside process -- bit we none-the-less require that those entities still submit
a bid and compete in a fair competition."
Mr. Chairman -- if they could engage in a fair competition,
we wouldn't need earmarks...
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