11/13/2023 0 Comments Stars and stripesInitially printed during the Civil War and a fixture of military life for generations, Stars and Stripes is today a multimedia operation that reaches about 1.4 million service members even on the most remote bases where there is no internet or cellphone service, with day-to-day coverage of news most important to them - pay, benefits, health issues and the like. But a hybrid outfit like Stars and Stripes - a Department of Defense organization partly funded by the military and a newspaper authorized by Congress to be independent of the military command - does not qualify for continuous funding in a continuing resolution. For all the wrong reasons, the venerable daily newspaper of America’s military service members was dropped from the Pentagon’s budget request this year, and the Department of Defense told the paper to prepare to close down at the end of September.ĭemocratic and Republican senators pushed back, and then President Trump - under assault over reports that he had disparaged fallen and wounded service members - declared in a tweet that funds to the paper would not be cut “under my watch” and that “It will continue to be a wonderful source of information to our Great Military!” Soon after, a Pentagon spokesman announced that the decision to close the paper had been reversed. With about $740 billion in play, the stakes are huge and the competing interests commensurate.Ĭongress ought to ensure that one relative drop in that ocean does not get swept away: Stars and Stripes. 1 under a continuing resolution - basically a stopgap measure that keeps funding at roughly existing levels. This year, as in nine of the 10 past years, the Pentagon is likely to start its fiscal year on Oct. The battle of the budget is an annual rite of America’s military spending that is rarely resolved on time.
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