Hunter’s Tack or Let the Truth Be 
Told: Hunter told Zakheim, “The real essence of what you were saying is, we need to increase the defense budget by a good $10 to $15 to $20 billion in real terms.” That is the approximate amount of the new personnel costs. He went on: “People costs, and particularly the medical costs, are here to stay” if the military is to sustain its high caliber force, considering there is continuing competition with the private sector. The alternatives, Hunter said, are to “keep modernization at 60 percent of what it should be or you increase the budget.”
Members of the House Armed Services Committee say the AIM-260 Joint Advanced Tactical Missile program has been set back three months due to the ongoing government shutdown. The comment is noteworthy because the JATM's status has been kept tightly under wraps.
