Weekly Roundup
Aug 17 – Aug 21 2015

The specter of potential sequestration cuts in fiscal year 2016 — which starts Sept. 30 — surfaced again this week in a letter signed by all 46 Democratic senators and comments from a former Federal Reserve chairman.

In that letter to Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, the Senate Democratic Caucus asked for new bipartisan budget talks to start “as soon as possible” with two months left in the current fiscal year.

Congress returns from its August state work period 23 days before FY 2015 ends and the U.S. would go “to the brink of another crisis” if lawmakers wait until then to start talks, the letter says.

Also this week, former Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke offered his perspective on the potential impacts of sequestration to the larger U.S. economy.

Bernanke, now a Brookings Institution fellow, said the U.S. should make greater efforts to look at its deficit in a longer-run context and the shorter-term sequestration cuts may have created more costs to preparedness and from canceled programs in the middle of their cycles.

“In the end, in thinking about the size of the military and our resource expenditures, we need to think about our foreign policy goals, the threats we might faces, the capacities we need to develop and ultimately, of course, the long-term budget constraints that we do face, ” he said.

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Time is running out to reserve your seat at the Potomac Officers Club‘s next “CIO Speaker Series” event Sept. 2, which will feature Army acquisition chief Heidi Shyu as the keynote.

Shyu holds the title of assistant secretary for acquisition, logistics and technology and acts as the Army’s acquisition executive, senior procurement executive, science adviser to the branch’s secretary and serves as the Army’s senior research and development official.

Chris Hamm, head of the General Services Administration’s Federal Systems Integration and Management Center, is scheduled to speak on Sept. 24.

Hamm leads a GSA organization that works with other federal agencies to carry out large information technology or professional services projects.

Additionally, we are looking forward to the POC’s 2015 Cybersecurity Summit onOct. 15 with Navy Adm. Michael Rogers, head of the National Security Agency and Cyber Command, lined up as the headline speaker.

Click here to sign up for these events and view POC’s full calendar.

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