Navy League: Obama on path to 240-ship fleet

[unhappycamper]

The amphibious dock landing ship Tortuga, left, and the amphibious assault ship Essex, right, steam alongside the fleet replenishment oiler Rappahannock, with the destroyer Stethem and the dock landing ship Harpers Ferry close behind. The head of the Navy League has charged that the Obama administration has ended the Navy’s former goal of building a fleet of at least 300 ships and is now on course to field a fleet of only 240.


Navy League: Obama on path to 240-ship fleet
By Philip Ewing - Staff writer
Posted : Monday Jan 11, 2010 5:22:37 EST

The Obama administration has quietly ditched the Navy’s former goal of building a fleet of at least 300 ships and is now on course to field a fleet of only 240, the head of the Navy League has charged.

In a January message to members, Navy League president Daniel Branch said that during the 2008 campaign, then-Sen. Barack Obama’s team responded to the Navy League’s questions about fleet size by saying “the current force structure is adequate to support the Navy’s missions,” referring to the fleet at the time of about 283 ships.

“Every president since World War I has made it clear that a Navy of more than 300 ships is essential to keep the peace, defend our shores and safeguard America’s global interests,” Branch wrote. “Clarification is needed from the current administration regarding its support for this important issue.”

The Navy League is urging its members to press their representatives in Congress to support a larger fleet, he wrote — just in time for the Navy Department to submit its budget amid a flurry of other updates and reports, including the Quadrennial Defense Review, due in February. The precedent set last year won’t cut it, he wrote.

“To maintain a Navy of at least 300 ships, the U.S. must fund and build at least 11 or 12 ships per year,” requiring as much as $27 billion per year, Branch wrote. “However, the administration submitted a budget of only $14.7 billion for ship construction in fiscal 2010. For this administration, there is a question as to budget priorities.”


Rest of article at: http://www.navytimes.com/news/2010/01/navy_fleetsize_011010w/



unhappycamper comment: unhappycamper to Navy League: Wake the fuck up! You fuckers are consuming over 50% of the discretionary budget already.

[NJmaverick]

1. Is there another navy in the world that even poses the slightest threat?

[earthside]

2. A trillion dollars a year.

Add up the Pentagon budget with the Veterans Department and with the parts of the Energy Department that builds and maintains nuclear weapons ... add that to the relevant parts of the CIA and Homeland Security budgets -- and the federal government is spending over a trillion dollars a year on the military and military related items.

We're running a trillion dollar-plus annual deficit -- we are doing to ourselves exactly what the Soviet Union did to itself; we are bankrupting our country for military spending, for maintaining an empire we simply cannot afford.

And sadly, military spending is a sacred cow -- neither Democrats or Republicans are politically willing to take on the Pentagon. So, there are few prospects that this spending is going to be controlled anytime soon -- meaning that one of these days we're going to experience yet another resounding economic crash.

[unhappycamper]

3. Yes.

We are indeed spending ourselves into poverty.

[unhappycamper]

4. Yes.

We are indeed spending ourselves into poverty.