There is no doubt sequestration would “immediately” lead to a severe disruption of the defense supply chain and significantly higher costs—a double-edged sword that may inevitably dog essentially all Defense Department acquisition programs, said Steve Cortese, senior vice president of Washington operations for ATK. “Even if sequestration is a one-time event, it will be very hard to recover from the more expensive” program costs, said Cortese on June 27 during a Senate Aerospace Caucus staff discussion on Capitol Hill. This era of uncertainty is forcing some persons to turn away from the defense business altogether, leading industry experts to fear a more significant brain drain in the not-so-distant future, he said. “It makes it almost impossible for us to help DOD and NASA to plan for [sequestration],” said Cortese.
A new report from the Government Accountability Office calls for the Pentagon’s Chief Technology Officer to have budget certification authority over the military services’ research and development accounts—a move the services say would add a burdensome and unnecessary layer of bureaucracy.
