No Leeway in Navy Budget to Repair USS Miami
MarineLink.com
Thursday, August 08, 2013
USS Miami: Photo credit USN
'USS Miami' was set ablaze by an arsonist in May 2012: a comprehensive assessment of the extensive fire damage, found that the submarine is fully repairable from a technical perspective, but budget funds are insufficient. Excerpts from comments by Rear Adm.Richard Breckenridge
Director, Undersea Warfare, follow:
TO READ THE ENTIRE ARTICLE: http://www.marinelink.com/news/leeway-budget-repair357402.aspx
EDITORS NOTE: The USS Miami was burned by an arsonist in May of 2012 , the ship was regarded as repairable but the present costs are now beyond the USN sequestration budget. So this act of sabotage goes from "mission kill" to "ship kill". This is totally unacceptable, we are still engaged around the world with unlawful combatants ,terrorists, and pirates. Worse, Russia and China dominate Cuba, and China now has the operating contract for the Panama Canal. We are challenged by Russian territorial claims in the High Arctic and Chinese aggression against the outer island possessions of our allies the Philippines and Japan. But the majority of sequestration savings are mandated by law to come out of defense budgets. Military pay is not keeping pace with inflation, military retirees are now charged for health care and the government is trying to charge even more, totally breaking the promise made to thousands of retirees on their initial enlistment or commissioning. We are sending out into the under producing job market thousands of early and mid career soldiers, sailors, airmen, and marines at a time when they are sorely needed. And now we learn that we simply can't afford to maintain a Navy especially repair battle or sabotage damage. How the USS Miami was subjected to arson in the first place speaks volumes about our ability to afford proper maritime security and asset protection. Social Security , a program that employees and their employers pay into and that the self employed pay doubly into is in trouble, participants keep having the age for receipt of paid for benefits moved up. But in all of the cuts we see no cuts to food stamps, welfare, grants to liberal pet projects, subsidies to non producing agricultural programs etc., etc. In short no reduction in corporate or non working human subsidies. The burden is shifted to America's military active and retired and American workers. While much of the blame goes to the current administration, both parties have a lot to answer for. When a government abandons its armed forces and accepts naval losses as permanent while engaged in what amounts to global low intensity warfare and destroys the classes that provide it with tax revenues in order to cater to non tax paying but voting blocks that demand and receive government subsidies can that lead to anywhere but the ruin of the republic? Is this governmental catering to special interest groups and general incompetence not treason yet?
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