President-elect Donald Trump’s nominee to direct the Office of Budget and Management will likely try to crack down on the way Congress funds the Pentagon. Trump announced Saturday in Palm Beach, Fla., that he had selected Rep. Mick Mulvaney (R-S.C.) to be his White House budget director. Mulvaney said the administration “will restore budgetary and fiscal sanity back in Washington,” according to Reuters. Trump said he picked Mulvaney because of his reputation for “reining in out-of-control spending, fighting government waste.” Mulvaney has specifically opposed the use of overseas contingency operations money to fund military readiness. In May Mulvaney joined three congressional colleagues in proposing an amendment to the defense authorization bill intended to “prevent abuse of the overseas contingency operations slush fund.” That position aligns him with Secretary of Defense Ash Carter, who repeatedly called for President Barack Obama to veto any military budget bill that used OCO funds for other Pentagon programs. “I’ve worked for many years to bring attention to the slush fund that is the war budget,” Mulvaney said at the time in a statement. “I’m proud to work with my colleagues to at least bring some accountability to how the Pentagon spends taxpayer dollars right now.”
Anduril and General Atomics will develop their Collaborative Combat Aircraft for the Air Force, beating out Boeing, Lockheed Martin, and Northrop Grumman, the service announced on April 24. But any of the non-selected companies can compete to actually manufacture the eventual design the Air Force said.