…
the Navy is looking at having to cancel as many as 14 ship maintenance
availabilities and shutting down carrier air wings and expeditionary squadrons
not heading into a deployment despite the relatively healthy budget the service
would have under a full-year CR. (1)
The Navy is threatening to cancel 14 ship maintenance
availabilities. However, the CR would
give the Navy $9.758B for ship depot maintenance (the amount it received in FY
2019) instead of the $10.426B it requested.
The difference is $688M which is a 6.4% reduction. So, according to the Navy, a 6.4% reduction
necessitates cancelling 14 ship maintenance availabilities. There is no possible way that a 6.4%
reduction requires the cancellation of 14 maintenance availabilities. That’s attempted blackmail/extortion of
Congress, pure and simple.
Wait, it gets worse.
Under a CR, the Navy would receive $5.712B for flight hours
versus the $5.682B it requested. That’s
an INCREASE of $30M !!!!!! Despite the
increase, the Navy claims it would need to shut down all non-deploying air
wings. They get more money for flight
hours and claim that means they have to shut down air wings????? That’s blackmail/extortion but it’s not even
competent blackmail/extortion. That’s
just stupid.
I would ask where the Secretary of the Navy is while this is
happening but he has already demonstrated his utter and total lack of integrity
when he told the President to fire him if the Ford sailed without its elevators
fixed and then he failed to resign when it happened. He further demonstrated his disdain and
disregard for Congress when he blamed Congress for asking questions about the
Ford. So, it’s no mystery why the Navy
seeks to blackmail/extort Congress. The
rot starts at the top.
Of course, if the Navy really needed money they could simply
cut a handful of Admirals and their staffs to help make up the funding
shortages. Well, to be fair, I’m not
sure that’s technically doable under CR rules – something about not being able
to reprogram budgetary line items?
Still, it’s emblematic of the Navy’s failure to be good stewards of the
taxpayer’s money and preference to cut maintenance rather than bloated bureaucracy.
(1)USNI News website, “Continuing Resolution Forcing Navy to
Delay Ship Maintenance, Curtail Training”, Megan Eckstein, 15-Nov-2019,
https://news.usni.org/2019/11/15/continuing-resolution-forcing-navy-to-delay-ship-maintenance-curtail-training
Well they could also ask to halt all spending on the LCS and Fords (except getting the first one working). That would of course amount to asking for congress to stop wasting money on useless ships and saying we think it could better spent on running the ones we have peek efficiency and maintenance. Can't see that happening.
ReplyDeleteThat was certainly on point. Kath, you made me almost literally laugh out loud with that excellent post.
DeleteI know there's all kinds of rules and regulations,etc BUT USN budget is around $200 billion, you telling me USN cant find a billion in savings and stick it in an account to smooth out CRs???? Ok, it might not be 100% legal but I'm sure Congress could understand the need for account that would serve that purpose....stopping so much activity for what is almost penny's on the dollar to the $200 billion budget is ridiculous.
ReplyDeleteI have always thought government entities should be forced to save a portion of their budgets for potential short falls. My state requires that only 99% of state revenues can be spent the rest is placed into a rainy day fund to be drawn from if revenues don't match projections. ie you can spend more than annual revenue but only if your save to do so.
ReplyDelete@Anoymous
ReplyDeleteBut in general that not how congress works. They allocate the money and you spend exactly what congress deems you deserved you got for on exactly what you asked for. If you start saving across budget years that looks like a slush fund that you are doing who knows what with. If you don't spent on the allocated thing(s) you loose it. Not always effect but designed to avoid misuse.
Now if the pentagon were to ask for contingency funds thay might well get them. But thay would still have to start out that way. One thing the Pentagon or Congress could do is to shift to treat operations for disaster relief as off budget as they do with war fighting. That would certainly take some pressure of operations budgets. I seem to recall that was Pentagon issue that showed up here not long ago.
A continuing resolution also locks in place all the budget language from the previous budget. They might have more money but can't fund new programs because they can't redirect money to them. If they tried, it would be illegal.
Delete"can't fund new programs "
DeleteCorrect. However, we aren't talking about funding new programs, just executing already planned maintenance.
Wonder if we could get the GAO to commission a report on the Admiraltys effectiveness?? Maybe try and get an explanation for why we have an Admiral for each ship in the fleet? What do they actually do, and are they contributing...to anything??? Clearly its very top heavy, and all the extra brass, with all that supposed experience, is doing no good. Plus, magine how many more lower officers could be at sea, if they werent fetching an Admirals coffee every day!! Has anyone read the Admirals list and the names of some of those commands?? Itd be funny if it wasnt so tragic!! Its time to cull the herd, starting at Secnav, and working down. Theres no reason our Navy cant function (better) with half as many flag officers, who are actually tasked with managing a competent, trained, maintenanced, effective fleet!! I bet that cutting Admirals and staffs just made up the maintenance shortfall... See, that was easy. Next.....
ReplyDeleteTop heavy is interesting. By Flag officers to Active duty. The USN looks be close to 40-50% more top heavy then the USCG, but the the RN is almost twice as top heavy in brass than the USN. So could be worse.
ReplyDeleteSure... There were some interesting articles written about the RN flag expansion... How the "spectacular fleet ashore" came to be, and weve seen much the same here, with staff positions growing in numbers inversely proportional to fleet size/workload. The chain of command is so muddled with all the joint commands, and with fleet commanders being deputy commanders of others... Its a miracle that task force or individual ships ever get any orders from on high... Ive been trying to make sense of it and its quite confusing!!
DeleteWhile at first I thought that the reactivation of old fleets was a good idea, now i see it as just another unnecessary splitting of responsibilities and further growth of bureauacracy...
Occasionally in the Service there is talk about efficiency. If in WWII they controlled X amount of ships/ sailors per Admiral and now we control half X ships/ sailors per twice as many Admirals, does that mean our leadership is one quarter or less as efficient as their predecessors. Maybe we should try leadership efficiency scoreboard to shame Admirals and generals into better organization.
DeleteThe RN went from being the largest navy in the world not that long ago, to being just an average post-cold war large European state sized navy.
DeleteProblem is that they kept most of the admirals.
Didnt Congress give the Navy funding for two more LCS than they asked for?? Hey, theres an easy billion to reallocate for somthing, ANYTHING...!!! Doing maintenance on a few 20 yr old ships is much more worthwhile than putting two more of those in the water!!!
ReplyDeleteI'm from lower Alabama. Leave my reefs waiting to happen alone.
DeleteAnd here I thought we had no fighting Admirals like John Paul Jones, Hull, Decatur, Halsey, or even Rickover.
ReplyDeleteGreat to be wrong! These folks bite the hands that feed them in the most ridiculous situations possible. Sleep well Sailors and Americans, your Navy is fighting the good fight.
Sarcasm over - serious question:
When are we gonna get rid of these Bozos?
The military budget is bloated, has been bloated for the better part of a decade. Start cutting programs like the LCS and others like it and mandate the funding be transferred into maintenance and training.
ReplyDeleteThat'll stop this nonsense.
Consider just the LCS program. Had we skipped that we'd have saved $600M per ship times 32 ships = $19.2B !!!!!
DeleteAdd to that the many hundreds of millions we've spent on module development that has yet to produce any functional module.
We've spent around $26B on the Zumwalt program with almost nothing to show for it!!!!
Those two useless programs alone would have saved us well over $46B. That's a LOT of maintenance money.
The navy probably did want to cancel all of those but can't because congress specifically orders the military to buy them. That's also a problem with the continuing resolutions. Without specific changes, all the previous budget's list of programs keep on chugging along.
Delete"because congress specifically orders the military to buy them."
DeleteThis is absolutely false. While it occasionally happens, Congress very rarely orders the Navy to buy something. The normal process, which covers 99% of the acquisitions, is that the Navy submits its wish list to Congress and then Congress funds it or not. Congress does not create its own ship designs or establish Navy force levels (excepting the mandated 11 carrier requirement which the Navy seems to ignore, anyway).
The Navy/military is almost never ordered by Congress to buy anything.
Maybe Congress should try (sending its own designs). it not like the USN's current track record is very good.
DeleteMentioning the Zumwalts. I thought one of the points of them was all the power generation thay had. So why are all the USN laser tests happening on Destroyers or something like the Ponce. Pay to put 10 high energy lasers on a Zumwalt and show world the awesomeness of them used as muti device batteries etc.
I want to see congress send over designs with WW2 hulls and modern technology that actually works.
Delete@that army guy Ill get out the pencil and start drawing em out!!! Ive said repeatedly that not all the answers are in the future, and in fact, many are found in our past!!! Bringing back true cruiser and destroyer hulls from the 60s, all the wsy back to WWII, with modern widgets (and armor!!) is a great place to start fixing many shortcomings. Of course abandoning multi-purpose and gold-plated ships would be the other big step....
DeleteJust tell all the admirals that their pensions will be on hold until the maintenance backlog is cleared.
ReplyDeleteI like that!
DeleteYou could add that on retirement they would be barred from taking employment with defense contractor:)
DeleteNick, I'd put it this way. If you take a job with a defense contractor, you forfeit your retirement.
DeleteAs you have correctly stated many times, ComNavOps, with adequate financial management and controls, the Navy could have a more combat-ready force and still come in well under those current expenditure numbers.
ReplyDeleteIf this country somehow decided to make me president, one of my first acts would be to bring in every officer who signed off on the Fords, Zumwalts, or LCSs--and fire them on the spot. That might leave running the Navy up to a bunch of LCDRs for a while, but that would be okay. People who have been out in the fleet actually doing things could, and presumably would, make better decisions than folks who've been driving LMDs (large metal desks) around DC and worrying more about their careers and their after-retirement jobs tan about doing the right thing.
ReplyDeleteYou could toss your hat into the Democratic ring - everyone else is!
DeleteThe Democrat debate stages look like a Cecil B. Denille picture.
DeleteDon't want to get too political here, but I'd run as a Libertarian if I ran.
ReplyDelete