Washington state lawmaker ascends to powerful funding post

McClatchy reports:

Over the past 30 years, Rep. Norm Dicks has been in the middle of virtually every of the nation's major defense funding controversies — from increasing military pay after the Vietnam War to the B-2 stealth bomber, and from the MX missile to replacing the Air Force's C-5 cargo plane with a modified Boeing 747.

At the same time, the major Army, Air Force and Navy installations in Washington state survived four rounds of base closings unscathed and emerged as cornerstones in the nation's defense community.

Now, the Washington state Democrat almost certainly will become chairman of the House Appropriations Committee's defense subcommittee, which controls the Pentagon's $650 billion budget. It represents roughly half of the discretionary spending in the federal budget.