– Plans to cancel maintenance for about 30 Navy ships at private shipyards between April and September.If you need further proof that the leadership of our military has been politicized then look no further than this news report.
– Plans to cancel depot maintenance for about 250 aircraft between April and September.
– Terminations of temporary civilian employees and a civilian hiring freeze. This will reduce the shipyards’ workforce by more than 3,000 people.
– Reductions in base spending and plans to cancel most repairs and upgrades of piers, runways, buildings and other facilities.
Adm. Greenert hints at his motivation for going public with these actions by writing that the they could be reversed if Congress ponies up the approriate funds before too long.
And so it goes, this game of chicken played between the services and lawmakers. And to be clear, this particular back-and-forth lives outside of the looming issue of sequestration. This one just involves the fact that Congress is holding the Navy to 2012 funding levels, which the Navy says will put it $4.6 billion short in 2013. If sequestration happens these sorts of reductions will seem modest by comparison.
The Pentagon has been planning for sequestration since EARLY last year. Now that its been put off and they're only facing spending cuts (at worse...still not as deep as sequestration) they suddenly have to pull this type of action in order to stay within budget?
They're not facing a SPENDING CUT...they're just not getting an increase! Spending is being held at 2012 levels!
This is bullshit. The CNO should be ashamed.
So basically the USN budget stays flat and fleet maintenance just falls of a cliff? Something is seriously wrong with the US military when even just trying to stay at current spending levels brings a bunch of cuts....Some politicians are talking about bringing the DoD spending to 2007 or 2008 levels which are still big levels, we aren't talking pre-9/11 here and this looks like a disaster, something is really wrong and the answer isn't more money...
ReplyDeleteexactly right sir! how do you program in basic growth to totally 5 billion dollars more in a future year when you KNOW that your budget is targeted for cuts? this is a game. a political game and he's playing it with glee.
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