It’s too late to completely avoid sequestration’s wrath, said panelists during a Senate Aerospace Caucus staff discussion on Capitol Hill June 27. Faced with fiscal uncertainties on multiple fronts, companies already are starting to lay off employees, they said. “Soft sequestration is here now,” said MacKenzie Eaglen, resident fellow for national security at the American Enterprise Institute. And, it’s only going to get worse, said the panelists. Stephen Fuller, director of the Center for Regional Analysis at George Mason University, said the impact of one million jobs lost as a result of sequestration would be felt in every municipality across the country—not just those with a heavy military or industry presence. However, he acknowledged that no one really knows what the true trickle-down effect would be. Steve Cortese, ATK’s senior vice president of Washington operations, said what’s really “at risk here is the American domestic supply chain.” Cortese said the major industry prime contractors would most likely weather the storm, while some subcontractors might either go out of business or give up on defense contracts.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth foot-stomped the Pentagon's push for acquisition speed and contractor accountability in a Jan. 12 speech at Lockheed Martin’s production hub in Fort Worth, Texas—the heart of the department’s biggest acquisition program, the F-35.
