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Latest Policy Publications
POGO’s experts push policymakers to enact commonsense reforms that tackle waste, corruption, and abuse of power; hold those who’ve violated the public trust accountable; protect our constitutional rights; and make the government work for all people.
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Analysis
Neither Shall the Sword: Conflict in the Years Ahead
(93 pages, January 2006) Col. Chet Richards (USAF, ret.), a long-time contributor to CDI’s published monographs, has written a new work on 4th generation warfare, the type of conflict America has been waging, and losing, in Iraq.
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Analysis
Defense Budget Tutorial #3C: Pork: How to get rid of it
Knowing what pork really is leads to a foolproof (and Congress-proof) solution. The biggest impediment may be finding a member of Congress serious enough to make real reforms stick. Straus Military Reform Project Director Winslow Wheeler explains.
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AnalysisDefense Budget Tutorial #3B: Pork: What is it?
If you think defense pork is doltish ideas for spending that Congress forces upon the Defense Department, you’d be quite wrong. Straus Military Reform Project Director Winslow Wheeler reveals that it’s not what you might think, and the players are not just among Congress and l...
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Analysis
Defense Budget Tutorial #3A: Pork: Where is it?
Where does Congress bury those “pork” projects in defense bills, and how much of this “earmarking” has been going on, especially since Sept. 11 when defense spending should have become serious business? Straus Military Reform Project Director Winslow Wheeler explains that it’s...
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Analysis
Legislating Secrecy from the Bench
An alarming case of judicial activism just in from Steve "James Brown" Aftergood at the Federation of American Scientists' Project on Government Secrecy follows below. This ruling would dramatically expand the risks for journalists and government oversight investigat...
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Analysis
Defense Budget Tutorial #1: What is the actual size of the 2006 defense budget?
The first part of a new series of “Defense Budget Tutorials,” to be released this week by the Straus Military Reform Project of CDI, reveals a complex menagerie of gimmicks and dodges in the 2006 defense budget. Congress actually “saved” little, if any, money, and billions of ...
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Analysis
Remarkable Article in Military Review
Meaningful “military reform” is difficult to define and is sometimes hard to distinguish from cosmetics. Writing in the U.S. Army’s journal, Military Review, a British general officer makes clear the need for real reform for the U.S. Army. Straus Military Reform Director Winsl...