Navy Plans to Cut Shipbuilding Budget Face Swift Pushback on Capitol Hill – By Gina Harkins (Military.com) / Feb 11 2020
Lawmakers are hitting back against the Navy’s plans to cut shipbuilding over the next several years just hours after the service presented its 2021 budget request.
Navy officials announced Monday plans to spend $16.4 billion on eight ships in 2021 — a more than $5 billion drop from the 12 hulls it bought last year. The Navy also laid out plans to buy a total of 44 ships over the next five years. This time last year, the Navy was planning to buy 55 new ships by 2024.
The change in plans has some on Capitol Hill concerned that the service won’t be able to meet its requirement to build a 355-ship Navy. That number was signed into law in 2017 after President Donald Trump campaigned on building a bigger fleet.
China, Rep. Rob Wittman said on Tuesday, is likely building up to a 420-ship navy. The U.S. must stay on track to meet its own 355-ship requirement in order to be capable of taking on near-peer threats, the Virginia Republican said.
“We have continued to make that investment and as we saw with the president’s budget, we have some differences there,” Wittman said at a congressional forum hosted by the Amphibious Warship Industrial Base Coalition. “We need to continue that investment in shipbuilding.”
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