Ayotte Slams Hagel’s A-10 Fleet Cuts; U-2 Retires, Army Shrinks, Cruisers Laid Up: 2015 Budget

[unhappycamper]

http://breakingdefense.com/2014/02/u-2-retires-again-pay-and-benefits-slimmed-down-cruisers-cut-2015-budget-preview-by-hagel/

Ayotte Slams Hagel’s A-10 Fleet Cuts; U-2 Retires, Army Shrinks, Cruisers Laid Up: 2015 Budget
By Colin Clark
on February 24, 2014 at 1:01 PM

PENTAGON: Congress and the Pentagon are likely to battle for most of the rest of this year over the administration’s budget plans: to retire the U-2 (again); to retire half the Navy’s current cruiser fleet; to trim and consolidate pay and some benefits; to close bases, to retire the A-10 fleet; to whack the Army back, as all the headlines have it, to pre-World War II levels.

~snip~

The other issue likely to generate quite a bit of legislative heat is a new $26 billion fund — the Opportunity, Growth and Security Initiative – designed to bolster military readiness. Hagel provided very few details about the fund other than noting its part of a larger $58 billion government-wide fund. On the face of it, it sounds like the sort of thing the House GOP would love to hate and appropriators in both chambers would approach with great skepticism. It may be a new incarnation of the wonderful Overseas Contingency Operations (OCO) funds that have paid for our operations in Iraq and Afghanistan and helped buy much of what the Pentagon said it needed to wage the war against terrorism over the last 13 years.

Democratic Rep. Adam Smith, ranking member of the House Armed Services Committee, offered a relatively supportive statement, noting how sequestration had reduced the Pentagon’s readiness budgets. “If Congress does not act, sequestration will go back into effect in fiscal year 2016 and beyond. Secretary Hagel clearly articulated that future uncertainty is making it difficult for the Department to plan,” he said in an emailed statement. “Under these conditions, our military leaders are doing their best to put forward a budget that provides national security. The preview outlines some tough choices, and I look forward to reviewing the budget in its entirety.”

Among the other issues sure to attract congressional scrutiny is the plan to trim the National Guard and the reserves, as well as transfer all Apache helicopters from the Guard to the active Army.

[bemildred]

1. Tsk. Now that is transparent. nt