Gov / Military Spending, DOD Contracts, National Defense $$$$

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Congress Says Navy Hiding Information on Sub Pricing in New Defense Policy Bill​

December 9, 2024 6:43 PM

A bipartisan group of lawmakers is accusing the Navy of withholding information from Congress about funding strategies and cost increases for nuclear-powered submarines, according to draft report language accompanying the final defense policy bill.

The House and Senate over the weekend unveiled a deal for the Fiscal Year 2025 National Defense Authorization Act that claims the Navy worked out a deal with defense contractors to address cost growth on submarines without notifying lawmakers and the White House.

“We are concerned with the lack of transparency that has occurred between the Navy and Congress over the last 18 months,” reads the joint explanatory statement accompanying the legislation.
“The Navy negotiated a funding strategy with industry that would have addressed cost growth, future cost to complete, workforce wage increases and infrastructure investments at both shipyards. The Navy did this in isolation and failed to not only inform Congress but also the Office of Management and Budget.”

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GAO Report on DoD Aquisition Reform​

December 13, 2024 9:28 AM

The following is the Dec. 12, 2024, Government Accountability Office report DoD Aquisition Reform, Military Departments Should Take Steps to Facilitate Speed and Innovation.

From the report​

What GAO Found

The Department of Defense (DOD) revamped its acquisition policies in 2020, with the intent to deliver innovative technologies to the user more quickly. These reforms, known collectively as the “adaptive acquisition framework,” established four pathways that weapon system acquisition programs can follow: urgent capability, middle tier, major capability, and software.

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Navy Plan to Buy 85 New Ships Will Cost $1 Trillion, CBO Says​

The 2025 plan to recapitalize the Navy’s fleet will cost about $40.1 billion annually — about double what the service has received from Congress for shipbuilding over the last five years, according to the Congressional Budget Office’s annual analysis.

Across the scope of the service’s 30-year plan, the Navy is set to grow from its current battle force of 296 manned ships to ships to 381 manned vessels plus 134 unmanned surface and subsurface vehicles by 2045, according to the service’s latest fleet structure review presented to Congress.

Overall, the net addition of 85 ships to the fleet will cost the Navy $1 trillion, according to the CBO analysis.

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Contracts for January 17, 2025

Today's Defense Department contracts valued at $7.5 million or more are now live on Defense.gov.
www.defense.gov

FY2024 Annual Performance Report for the DOD Strategic Management Plan for FYs 2022 – 2026​

A document regarding the FY 2024 Annual Performance Report for the DOD Strategic Management Plan for FYs 2022 – 2026.

 

An Early, Easy, and Essential Win for Trump on Defense Acquisitions Is Within Reach​

A defense tech CEO shared a memorable insight with me over coffee last year: “Selling to government is like fighting a toddler.” Just as a toddler needs food and sleep to survive and thrive, the Defense Department has clear requirements for what it needs to deter and win wars, and thereby allow the country to survive and thrive. Yet, navigating that process is exasperating and maddening — like negotiating with a toddler in the middle of a tantrum.

Ultimately, this comes down to people and their incentives. It’s not technology, it’s not insufficient authorities — it’s people, pure and simple.

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An Early, Easy, and Essential Win for Trump on Defense Acquisitions Is Within Reach - War on the Rocks

A defense tech CEO shared a memorable insight with me over coffee last year: “Selling to government is like fighting a toddler.” Just as a toddler needs
warontherocks.com
 

Chuck Grassley Sends Warning About Pentagon Spending: ’65% Of Transactions Could Not Be Verified’​

Feb 1, 2025

On Thursday, Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) spoke on the Senate Floor about Department of Defense spending.

11:47
 

The State Department is planning to buy $400 million worth of armored Teslas​

  • The State Department wants to buy $400 million worth of armored Tesla vehicles.
  • The department's procurement forecast for 2025 listed a five-year contract with Elon Musk's company.
  • Musk's companies have received billions of dollars from government contracts and subsidies.
The State Department is looking to buy $400 million worth of vehicles from Elon Musk's EV company, Tesla.

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https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/com...S&cvid=265c1e1b7bc34a73f28a6cb4a7748fc6&ei=15
 

Update 1:

Tesla Removed From $400M Federal Contract Amid Musk Scrutiny​

The State Department was planning to buy $400 million worth of “Armored Tesla” later this year, according to its 2025 procurement forecast, a document outlining projections of anticipated contracts, which was published in December. But after reports emerged on Wednesday of the potential for conflict of interest given Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s prominent role in the Trump Administration, the document was updated, removing mention of Tesla and changing the line item to “Armored Electric Vehicles” instead.

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https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/com...S&cvid=49d781dfb0814ea291212950d7b619a4&ei=47
 

Trump Sends Shockwave Through Defense Stocks, Says Military Spending Could Be Halved​

President Donald Trump suggested Thursday that U.S. military spending could be cut in half. Shares of defense firms dropped on the news.

“We’re going to spend a lot less money,” said Trump at a news conference addressing the potential outcome of talks with Russia and China. “One of the first meetings I want to have is with President Xi of China and President Putin of Russia. I want to say let’s cut our military budget in half.”

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https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/top...S&cvid=958592ff0fb04f2497095e3f17dff6c6&ei=25
 

Welcome to the New Military-Industrial Complex​

An assortment of new firms, born in Silicon Valley or incorporating its disruptive ethos, have begun to challenge the older ones for access to lucrative Pentagon awards.

Last April, in a move generating scant media attention, the Air Force announced that it had chosen two little-known drone manufacturers—Anduril Industries of Costa Mesa, California, and General Atomics of San Diego—to build prototype versions of its proposed Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCA), a future unmanned plane intended to accompany piloted aircraft on high-risk combat missions. The lack of coverage was surprising, given that the Air Force expects to acquire at least 1,000 CCAs over the coming decade at around $30 million each, making this one of the Pentagon’s costliest new projects. But consider that the least of what the media failed to note. In winning the CCA contract, Anduril and General Atomics beat out three of the country’s largest and most powerful defense contractors—Boeing, Lockheed Martin, and Northrop Grumman—posing a severe threat to the continued dominance of the existing military-industrial complex, or MIC.

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Welcome to the New Military-Industrial Complex

An assortment of new firms, born in Silicon Valley or incorporating its disruptive ethos, have begun to challenge the older ones for access to lucrative Pentagon awards.
www.thenation.com
 
FWIW (dyodd)

Edward Sard and the Rise of the Permanent War Economy

The war industry has become a permanent fixture of US capitalism, channeling massive public subsidies to private corporations. The first writer to analyze this “Permanent War Economy” was Edward Sard, a brilliant Marxist economist working in the 1940s.
jacobin.com
 

The State of U.S. Shipbuilding Hearing Testimony​


March 12, 2025 9:13 AM

The following are the combined written statements from the wittnesses at the March 11, 2025, House Armed Services Committee hearing The State of Shipbuilding.

Statements are from Brett Seidle acting Assistant Secretary of the Navy (ASN) for Research, Development and Acquisition, Ronald O’Rourke with the Congressional Research Service, Shelby Oakley with the Government Accountability Office and Eric Labs with the Congressional Budget Office.

From the CBO report​

The Department of Defense (DoD) submitted the Navy’s shipbuilding plan for fiscal year 2025 to the Congress on March 18, 2024. The Congressional Budget Office is required by law to analyze that plan and assess its costs.

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Pay ‘Number One Issue’ in Growing U.S. Shipbuilding Workforce, Panel Tells HASC​

Increasing wages for shipyard workers is the top challenge when attracting and retaining everyone from pipefitters to naval architects, a naval analyst told the House Armed Services Committee on Tuesday.

For those in the trades – welders, electricians, pipefitters and shipfitters – the working conditions are “hot, cold and dirty” with wages only a couple dollars more than fast food workers, the Congressional Budget Office’s Eric Labs told the HASC.

At the same time, many shipyard workers’ cost-of-living expenses are rising faster than inflation, Labs said. He noted that the COVID-19 pandemic and remote work possibilities saw more highly paid white-collar workers moving from larger cities to more distant areas like Bath, Maine, the home of guided-missile destroyer builder General Dynamics Bath Ironworks.

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