Sequestration Puts Navy at High Risk

Sea Services Officials Detail Sequestration’s Impact
DoD News, Defense Media Activity
By Jim Garamone
Feb. 26, 2015
WASHINGTON

Lightning flashes over the flight deck of the aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson as the ship transits the Persian Gulf, Feb. 8, 2015. The carrier is deployed in the U.S. 5th Fleet area of responsibility supporting Operation Inherent Resolve.
U.S. Navy photo by Petty Officer 2nd Class John Philip Wagner, Jr.

Under the president’s fiscal year 2016 budget proposal, the military’s sea services would be able to carry out their worldwide missions, but if sequestration triggers, all bets are off, senior Navy and Marine Corps officials said on Capitol Hill yesterday.

Sean Stackley, the assistant secretary of the Navy for research, development and acquisition; Lt. Gen. Kenneth J. Glueck Jr., the commanding general of the Marine Corps Combat Development Command; and Vice Adm. Joseph P. Mulloy, the deputy chief of naval operations for integration of capabilities and resources, testified before the House Armed Services subcommittee on sea power and projection forces on the budget request.

High Risk
The department’s fiscal 2016 budget proposal represents the bare minimum to execute the defense strategy guidance. It still, however, “results in high risk in two of the most challenging missions that depend on adequate numbers of modern, responsive forces,” the joint statement said.

“The principal risk to the department’s ability to meet the [defense strategy guidance] remains the uncertainty in future funding, which affects our planning and the ability to balance near- and long-term readiness and capability,” the statement said. “The fiscal 2014 President’s Budget was the last budget submission to fully meet all of the missions.”

The Navy made difficult, strategy-based choices and shifted funds to higher priority missions, but that is not sustainable, officials said in the statement.
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You know how we keep hearing politicians say they support the troops and value the military? Like they say, talk is cheap and these guys think our defense forces should be too or they would have fixed the budget by now. They aren't even talking about it so as with the picture of lightning off the USS Carl Vinson, Congress struck again.