Why exempt the Navy from a spending freeze?
January 28th, 2010 | Blogs Congress leadership Washington | Posted by Phil Ewing
One blogger calls for canceling the Zumwalt-class destroyers as part of President Obama's spending cutbacks //Image: Naval Sea Systems Command, photo illustration by Scoop Deck
In his speech last night, President Obama called for a spending freeze for most of the federal government, starting next year. He made exceptions for entitlement programs and “national defense” spending, but this has led many bloggers online to ask: Why? How come the Pentagon — and specifically, the Navy — gets to keep spending as before?
Change.org points out that when all the new U.S. troops reach Afghanistan after the plus-up there is complete next year, the cost to taxpayers will be around $82 million per day.
Online columnist Ivan Eland has some specific suggestions for how the U.S. could realize savings by not spending money on the Navy:
The Navy could cancel the CVN-79 aircraft carrier, terminate the building of littoral combat ships and LPD-26-class [sic] amphibious vessels, stop production of exorbitantly expensive DDG-1000 Zumwalt-class destroyers, and terminate production of SSN-774 Virginia-class submarines. The Navy has little relevance to the war on terror and, with existing equipment, has crushing dominance over any other fleet in the world.
So how about it? Is it fair that the Department of Housing and Urban Development, or NASA, have to endure frozen budgets for the next three years, but the Pentagon gets to keep spending?
Comments
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RetiredNukeLDO Says:
January 28th, 2010 at 2:09 pmYes, but I’m biased!
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Mike Burleson Says:
January 28th, 2010 at 2:33 pmPerhaps no surprise, I agree with this, and have been calling for a freeze on major warship construction for years. It is possible that the Navy is out of touch with present reality, since it insists on building ships it can’t afford while, for an enemy that no longer exists, while piracy rages unchecked in the Gulf and our aging hulls worked as hard as ever.
We are overwhelming powerful in a conventional sense at sea, while being extremely vulnerable to asymmetrical tactics from small boats navies, which are rising in the Gulf, along with nationalists tendencies throughout the Third Word. Even the single near-peer threat (even that being stretch) of China, while trying to build a Blue Water force, is still overwhelmingly armed with fast attack craft, and more diesel subs than our stretched nuclear force.
We are ready to fight non-naval land powers, rogue states like Iran, but have long ago dropped the concept of sea control from our list of requirements, since we don’t have enough hulls in the water, of an adequate type to make it work. First lets end the spending spree on ships of billion dollars each plus, and rebuild our numbers.
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Bruce Says:
January 28th, 2010 at 3:52 pmA shipbuilding budget freeze is probably not a bad thing. A freeze implies that there will be no increase in expenditures over that which was spent the year before. So, if the naval shipbuilding budget were X in 2010, then it should be not greater than X in 2011, if the freeze to apply. Which vessels need to be delayed or cancelled to make that happen is up to the Pentagon and Congress. So long as a freeze does not harm our shipbuilding infrastructure, I can’t see the harm.
It seems to me that the Navy shipbuilding budget is already being squeezed, though. Has anyone heard any news about the CGX lately? The Trident boomers are getting old, too. But recent articles have said that the Navy budget can’t afford to replace them. The only shipbuilding program causing any stir is the LCS.
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The “Big Freeze” in Defense « New Wars Says:
January 30th, 2010 at 6:02 am[...] Scoop Deck also points to an article at Ivan Eland which details specific cuts: The Navy could cancel the CVN-79 aircraft carrier, terminate the building of littoral combat ships and [LPD-17]-class amphibious vessels, stop production of exorbitantly expensive DDG-1000 Zumwalt-class destroyers, and terminate production of SSN-774 Virginia-class submarines. The Navy has little relevance to the war on terror and, with existing equipment, has crushing dominance over any other fleet in the world. [...]
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The Scoop Deck – The budget and its discontents, vol. 2: Are we the Soviets? Says:
February 3rd, 2010 at 11:26 am[...] drumbeat continues online for including the Pentagon — with Navy programs inevitably singled out — in the federal [...]