Trumps Military Buildup Threatens to Gut U.S. Coast Guard

[babylonsister]

https://foreignpolicy.com/2017/03/02/trump-military-build-up-threatens-to-cut-u-s-coast-guard-budget-cuts-department-of-homeland-security/

Trump’s Military Buildup Threatens to Gut U.S. Coast Guard

By Robbie Gramer
March 2, 2017 - 4:38 pm



While U.S. President Donald Trump on Thursday touted a dramatic buildup of the U.S. military aboard the Navy’s newest carrier, the USS Gerald Ford, his government quietly unveiled plans to gut the the U.S. Coast Guard.

The Office of Management and Budget is targeting roughly 10 percent budget cuts for the tiny and always cash-strapped military branch. One Republican lawmaker now warns those cuts could cripple the under-resourced and overstretched Coast Guard’s efforts to protect 95,000 miles of American coastline and U.S. interests abroad, playing an especially big role in interdicting drug smugglers.

Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-Calif.), member of the House Armed Services Committee, railed at Trump’s budget plans.

“It’s nonsensical to pursue a policy of rebuilding the Armed Forces while proposing large reductions to the U.S. Coast Guard budget,” he wrote in a letter to the president Thursday. Cutting the Coast Guard’s budget would “serve to the detriment of U.S. national security and create exposures that will most certainly be exploited by transnational criminal networks and other dangerous actors,” he wrote.

The $1.3 billion cut to the U.S. Coast Guard in fiscal year 2018 includes a directive to scrap the building of a $500 million ship, the newest National Security Cutter (NSC).

There’s just one problem: The ship’s production is already underway. Shipbuilding company Huntington Ingalls announced it would build the latest cutter, the Coast Guard’s ninth, on Dec. 30. And now it, and its shipbuilding yard in Pascagoula, Mississippi, are adrift as the OMB directive came without warning.

“The impact of OMB’s direction to the Coast Guard is unknown at this time. We have already purchased long lead materials and have begun pre-production,” a spokesperson for Huntington Ingalls told Foreign Policy.

The Coast Guard is part of the Department of Homeland Security, but it’s still the fifth branch of the military.

more...

https://foreignpolicy.com/2017/03/02/trump-military-build-up-threatens-to-cut-u-s-coast-guard-budget-cuts-department-of-homeland-security/

[Brother Buzz]

1. Fifth branch of the military?

Scratching my head and thinking real hard

[babylonsister]

4. ?

Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, CG. Did that help?

[Brother Buzz]

8. Holy shit, I'm really having a senior moment! Thanks

[Lurks Often]

7. During wartime the Coast Guard becomes part of the military

and Coast Guard assets can and have been deployed to the combat zone.

In WWII Coast Guard cutters had their armaments upgraded and the larger cutters would escort convoys to England

Some members of the Coast Guard served in the Persian Gulf during either 1991 or 2003 or both.

[Wounded Bear]

11. IIRC, most of the landing craft were piloted by CG officers...

[Zoonart]

2. WTAF?

So Mr. Build'A'Wall does not want to protect our maritime borders, fishing industry, pleasure boaters?
Every drug cartel in the world will start building submarines.

[Wounded Bear]

5. They already are building subs...

this is just conceding to them.

[Wounded Bear]

3. Apparently, he doesn't know that the USCG is a big part of the "Wall" he wants...

One of it's biggest jobs is to patrol the coasts to look for ship borne smuggling and illegal immigration.

[roscoeroscoe]

6. penny foolish, dollar foolish

This makes no sense at all. Did they use a dart board?! Or do they just oppose anything worthwhile (search & rescue, lifesaving) on principle?!

[wishstar]

9. Trump cares more about 75 more Navy ships to help Putin keep China from drilling in S China Sea

rather than taking care of needs closer to home.

Military contractors are poised to be even more enriched. Ironic how Trump managed to con so many moderates and even progressives into thinking he was going to reduce the "military-industrial complex" and keep us out of military engagements

[panader0]

10. I have two sons in the CG.....

[Wounded Bear]

12. My condolences....

J/K

[babylonsister]

13. I have 3 nephews in

the CG, and 3 family members who retired from there. I hope he's just blowing smoke, but he's batshit nutz so who knows?

[panader0]

14. So Drumph wants to cut 1.3B from the CG

but spend 30B on a wall? Isn't the CG part of border security? So dumb.

[MineralMan]

15. Hey, now! An answer for would-be immigrants to the Great Wall.

I can see it now:

Fast Ship Cruises to El Norte.
Our Comfortable speedboats will whisk you up the coast and put you ashore and a convenient landing site in El Norte. No risk. No walls. No Migra. No problemas! El Presidente Chingaso Trump has shut down the Coast Guard, so we can get you there fast and safely. Book now! Boats are filling up fast! Departures daily from Tijuana and Cancun.

[Lucinda]

16. KNR