WASHINGTON \u2013 If the federal government ends up operating under a continuing resolution this fall, the U.S. Navy wouldn\u2019t be able to buy the ships and weapons it needs in fiscal 2022, wouldn\u2019t have enough money operate the fleet and might have to cut back on people, the Navy\u2019s top budget officer said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Rear Adm. John Gumbleton, the deputy assistant secretary of the Navy for budget, said during a panel at the Navy League\u2019s annual Sea Air Space conference that under a CR, which maintains FY21 spending levels, the service would have $14 billion in the wrong funding accounts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThere\u2019s no goodness with a CR,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Though the Navy received a funding top line in FY21 that\u2019s about $4.5 billion greater than it\u2019s seeking in FY22, Gumbleton said he\u2019d rather have a lower top line than more money with significant restrictions. Under a CR, for example, no new programs can begin and programs can\u2019t add quantity beyond what was planned in the previous year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWhen you look at the new starts or production increases, that\u2019s actually a loss of almost $8 billion\u201d that the Navy wanted to spend in FY22 that wouldn\u2019t be allowed under a CR.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Gumbleton added that personnel and operations and maintenance costs are outpacing inflation, while the Navy\u2019s budget was already set to increase less than the rate of inflation. As a result, FY22 was already going to be a tough budget year for the Navy. With the prospect of a full-year CR, Gumbleton said the Navy is facing an O&M deficit of $1.8 billion, while the Marine Corps is facing a loss of $700 million. The FY21 funding levels are not sufficient to cover expected FY22 operating costs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Additionally, the Navy would be short about $2 billion in its personnel accounts, so \u201cin a yearlong CR we would have to cut people, cut sailors, cut Marines to pay the bills, to pay the salaries.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The total amount of money that would be misaligned \u2013 available to the Navy and Marines to spend on things they no longer wish to buy and not available for current spending needs \u2013 would equal about $14 billion, which Gumbleton called \u201ca staggering amount of money.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cA yearlong CR is the worst possible scenario,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It\u2019s a distinct possibility, though.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
John Lucio, a professional staff member on the Senate Appropriations defense subcommittee, said during the panel discussion that \u201cthe signals are there\u201d for a year-long continuing resolution.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cAnything can happen, but we received the budget late, a couple months late; we don\u2019t really see a [five-year Future Years Defense Program, which is typically submitted with each budget request]; we\u2019ve got a top line problem; we\u2019re dealing with some of the divestment issues,\u201d he said. \u201cSo there\u2019s lots of signals that we certainly aren\u2019t going to get this done on time, but it may be an extended period of time.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cAll systems would say that maybe an early spring, mid-spring, maybe even year-long isn\u2019t really out of the question,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Lucio said some of the problem stems from a disagreement over the total defense spending top line. The Senate Armed Services Committee, for example, added $25 billion to the Pentagon\u2019s proposed spending plan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
There are also disagreements over how to spend the money the Navy is allotted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Gumbleton said the Navy in previous budget turndowns prioritized fleet size at the expense of readiness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
When sequestration forced lower budgets a decade ago, \u201cwhat the Department of the Navy did was maintain their ship procurement at the expense of readiness, and then what we saw was aviation readiness go through a bathtub, we saw \u2026 ships not coming out of the yard on time.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Now, he added, \u201cwith forethought of recognizing where the threat is potentially in the future, and also recognizing that there\u2019s no higher priority than the Columbia-class submarine … the [chief of naval operations] and leadership of both the Navy and Marine Corps made some hard choices, which was ruthless prioritization of, number one, readiness, ready to fight tonight.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
With readiness the top priority in FY22 and modernization to develop future weapons a second-tier priority, Gumbleton said the Navy \u201ctook our risk\u201d in fleet size.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Part of that funding profile requires decommissioning seven cruisers, which are increasingly costly and difficult to maintain and, in some cases, don\u2019t field the most up-to-date warfighting systems. Some lawmakers, however, have pushed back.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe reality is Congress gets a vote in this too, and it may not always go the Navy\u2019s way, but I do think there are certain obligations that if we decide to not allow divestments or decommissionings then we\u2019ve got to figure out a way to be able to support the O&M costs to maintain those platforms,\u201d Lucio said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A continuing resolution this fall would put $14 billion in Navy funds in the wrong accounts compared to Navy needs \u2013 meaning the service couldn\u2019t buy the right ships and weapons, wouldn\u2019t have enough money operate the fleet and may have to cut back on people due to the misalignment of funds.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":40180,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-noindex":"","_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-nofollow":"","_yoast_wpseo_canonical":"","_acf":"","_yoast_wpseo_primary_category":16,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_smg_distribution_targets":[]},"categories":[160,29,162,16,93,36],"tags":[],"coauthors":[3354],"class_list":["post-23700","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-daily-news-roundup","category-digital-show-dailies","category-digital-show-daily","category-naval","category-navy-league","category-newsletters"],"acf":{"subheadline":"","legacy_arc_id":"YFJT23S5ZZEWLPLSFEQNWC6IBU","arc_canonical_url":"\/digital-show-dailies\/navy-league\/2021\/08\/03\/year-long-continuing-resolution-would-cost-the-navy-14b-in-spending-power\/","remove_feature_photo":false,"is_sponsored":false,"subtype":"","redirect_url":"","disable_inline_ads":false,"native_logo_pretext":"Presented By:"},"yoast_head":"\n