No More Carriers! No More Subs! No More Bombers! Untill we take care of our Soldiers

[n2doc]

This needs to be a rallying call. We could fix Water Reed's problems for the cost of 1 Nuclear Sub:

"In 1997 GAO found that the NSSN program is not likely to meet the objective of producing a submarine that is significantly less costly than the Seawolf. Based on Navy estimates for a 30-ship, single shipbuilder program, the Seawolf's average acquisition cost was estimated to be about $1.85 billion compared to the NSSN's estimate of about $1.5 billion, and based on a 30-ship, two shipbuilder program, the Navy's current estimated acquisition cost for the fifth ship of the NSSN class had risen from about $1.5 billion to about $1.8 billion as of March 1996.

The existing DOD guidance calls for a force of 50 attack submarines, although some studies have called for raising the number of subs to as many as 72. Existing plans are sufficient to meet the goal of 50 boats, although higher numbers would require modification to these plans. According to Navy secretary Richard Danzig, as of October 1999 the Joint Chiefs of Staff were studying options for increasing the size and capability of the submarine force. The three options under review include by converting older Ohio-class SSBN submarines to so-called SSGNs at a cost of $420 million; refueling and extending by 12 years the service life of perhaps eight Los Angeles-class (SSN 688) subs at a cost per copy of $200 million; or building new Virginia-class (SSN 774) subs at a rate of at least four over the next five years, at a cost of roughly $2 billion per boat. The FY2000 Defense Authorization bill requires the Navy to study converting four of the oldest Tridents to the new SSGN configuration.
The JCS Submarine Force Structure Study, completed in November 1999, concluded that the optimal force structure would be 68 attack submarines by 2015 and 76 by 2025, with the minimum being at least 55 by 2015 and 62 by 2025. The report called for at least 18 Virginia-class submarines by 2015. The current Navy acquisition plan calls for ordering one per year through 2006, and two a year after that. The proposal in the Force Structure Study calls for the Navy to go to two a year in 2004, two years early, and to buy three in 2008. To meet the goal for 18 Virginia class boats by 2015 and to meet the minimum goal of 62 boats by 2025 would require construction of roughly three subs a year. This would require an additional $4 billion a year for perhaps 14 years -- $56 billion more than the currently planned construction rate."
http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/ship/nssn.htm

Carriers are even worse:
CVN-21 is the Navy's next planned aircraft carrier. Congress has been providing advance procurement funding for the ship since FY2001. The Navy's FY2006 budget submission requests $565 million in FY2006 advance procurement funding for the ship and defers its procurement by one year, to FY2008. The Navy estimates that CVN-21 would cost about $3.2 billion to develop and about $10.5 billion to procure, for a total estimated acquisition cost of about $13.7 billion. This report will be updated as events warrant.
http://www.history.navy.mil/library/online/navycvn21.htm


After reading this:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x261706

As well as the stories from Walter Reed over the weekend, we need to put our wounded soldiers before cold war era weapons procurement (aka welfare for the Mil-indust complex). But who is going to step up and demand that the funds be redirected?