Analyst: Lawmakers do not trust Navy numbers

[unhappycamper]

Analyst: Lawmakers do not trust Navy numbers
By Philip Ewing - Staff writer
Posted : Thursday Mar 20, 2008 16:09:46 EDT

Unless top Navy officials behave more like the Air Force in asking forthrightly for the funding they think they need, lawmakers could “misperceive” the true costs for operating future fleets and not set aside enough money, a congressional budget expert said Tuesday.

Ron O’Rourke, a naval funding specialist with the Congressional Research Service, said that senior Navy leaders are hurting themselves by not telling Congress explicitly how much money they need for shipbuilding.

Congressional leaders routinely hear the Air Force complain that it needs billions more dollars each year for the planes it wants, O’Rourke said. But lawmakers have seen so many big differences between the Navy’s funding requests and its actual outlays that many of them no longer take the Navy’s numbers seriously.

Some members are placing more stock on the cost estimates provided by Congressional Budget Office than by the Navy, O’Rourke said, and he referenced a comment Friday by Rep. Gene Taylor, D-Miss., who called the Navy’s estimates for its shipbuilding plan “pure fantasy.”

O’Rourke appeared at a panel at the Navy League Sea Air Space exposition taking place through Thursday in Washington. Also on the panel were the Navy’s Fleet Forces Commander, Adm. Jonathan Greenert; Marion Blakey, president of the Aerospace Industries Association, a trade group; and Mike Petters, president of Northrop Grumman Shipbuilding. The session was on “capability vs. affordability,” and each member offered suggestions on how the Navy should strike the balance between the two in planning for its future fleet.


Rest of article at: http://www.navytimes.com/news/2008/03/navy_sas_affordability_031808w/



uhc comment: In all honesty, the Navy's shipbuilding efforts are less than stellar --> http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=259&topic_id=11032

[izzie]

1. The DOD NEVER has enough money.

I think they have been saying that since Washington was the Gen. fighting the Brits. It will never stop.