Cheney Is Back

An influential Republican and the government's top contractor both went to Capitol Hill this week to urge action against sequestration. Former Vice President and Defense Secretary Dick Cheney told Senate Republicans the automatic cuts would devastate technology development and readiness. Lockheed Martin CEO Robert Stevens testified before a House panel. He said Lockheed would lose 10,000 jobs if sequestration were to occur, and in a memo to staff, he said employees may get notices of possible layoffs or plant closings later this year. An aerospace industry report released earlier this week estimated the across-the-board cuts would cost more than 2 million jobs nationwide. By some estimates, it would raise unemployment by 1.5 percent.