The chairman of the House defense appropriations committee warned senior Navy and Air Force officials this week that they will not be funded above the limits outlined in the 2011 Budget Control Act, urging them to prioritize and find savings on their own or lawmakers will do it for them.
Rep. Rodney Frelinghuysen (R-N.J.) told the services’ leadership that the committee plans to enforce the restrictions imposed by the BCA, accusing the White House of ignoring the law by proposing a $534 billion defense budget for fiscal 2016, which is about $34 above the BCA levels.
“I expect our allocation to be approximately $34 billion below the president’s request,” Frelinghuysen said, noting that the Navy’s share of that amount is $13 billion and the Air Force’s is $10 billion. He urged Navy Secretary Ray Mabus, Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Jonathan Greenert and Marine Corps Commandant Gen. Joseph Dunford to identify additional cuts to comply with the act during a hearing on the Navy’s budget on Thursday.
“With respect, I advise you that we will cut $13 billion with you. Or we will cut $13 billion without you,” he told the leaders, later adding: “Something has got to give if we are going to get under the $13 billion figure.”
Frelinghuysen echoed that statement during testimony on Friday with Air Force Secretary Deborah Lee James and Chief of Staff Gen. Mark Welsh.
“As we build our FY ’16 bill, we’d like to have your input,” he said. “Make no mistake: the committee will cut $10 billion with you. Or we will cut $10 billion without you.”
Freylinghusen upped the pressure on the Air Force to meet that $10 billion cut, telling James and Welsh that Congress will likely block the service’s plans to save money by retiring the fleet of A-10 aircraft for a second consecutive year.
The Navy and Air Force leaders expressed similar responses, warning that cuts to President Barack Obama’s request will hamper their ability to conduct critical missions and endanger national security.
Greenert told the committee that efforts to modernize will be deeply hit under cuts and the possible return of full sequestration on Oct. 1, the beginning of fiscal 2016. “Most of what we do will come out of modernization,” he added.
He said Obama’s request for the Navy is the “absolute minimum” required for carrying out missions and said anything below that will put missions to deter and defeat aggression at risk.
“When I say risk, I mean that some of our platforms, and our people and our systems, they’ll be late arriving to the fight, and they’ll arrive with insufficient ordnance, with not superior combat systems and sensors and networks that they need, and they will be inadequately prepared to fight,” Greenert said, adding “more sailors and Marines and Merchant Marines will be killed.”
Dunford said additional cuts will harm the Marine Corps’ ability to quickly react to crisis situations, such as evacuating American personnel from embassies.
James and Welsh in a joint written statement said the Air Force does not have the capacity for additional reductions, and noted that it is already facing a shortfall in the critical area of intelligence, reconnaissance and surveillance missions.
“There was a time when the Air Force could trade some capacity in order to retain capability. But we have reached the point where the two are inextricable; lose any more capacity, and the capability will cease to exist,” they said.
“Americans will be put in danger, and our leaders’ options will be markedly limited,” they warned.