Update -- Gates' proposed cutting about 20% from the MDA budget mainly by eliminating new interceptors for the Midcourse Defense system and ABL. Not a great response from Congress especially our local Democrat, Parker Griffith. Of course he realizes his reelection could hang on this. More to come on the budget as it makes its way through Congress.
Rumors are here in The Weekly Standard that the new defense budget to be announced on Monday will "dissolve" the Missile Defense Agency. It was thought that there would be big cuts to the various missile defense programs but nothing as big as this. Now of course it could mean that the programs are returned to their respective services - the Army and Navy - but it also could mean they go away. Much of the MDA has been slowly moving to Redstone Arsenal in Huntsville. Eliminating the Agency will eliminate a lot of Federal civil service and contractors jobs just supporting the infrastructure. The reason the Agency was created in the first place was to prevent the Services from raiding the funding to pay for their own priorities. If the various systems are given to them they might just go ahead and do that. Anyway a big chunk of the Huntsville & Madison County economy will go away. Let's hope this is not completely true.
No comments:
Post a Comment