Gang Of Six Will Cut Deep Into Defense - Updated

So when I gave a few personal thoughts regarding the Navy at the Tipping Point this morning, did you give it a casual glance before you dismissed it, or did you actually read it and take my advice to start thinking about alternative futures? My sense is most Americans - much less DoD employees - are still not ready to be serious about the debt problem, but maybe a bit of cold water will help get the point across.

Tony Capaccio of Bloomberg reported today on Twitter that House Armed Services Chairman Buck McKeon has warned a panel of GOP members today that the Gang of Six proposal will cut $886 billion in defense spending over 10 years. This number is compared to the $400 billion President Obama proposed, not on top of.

With the Navy budget running between 27% and 31% of the defense budget over the last 15 years, that means between $239 and $275 billion in cuts to the Navy over the next 10 years, or an average of $23.9 - $27.5 billion in cuts annually to the Navy over the next decade if the pie is distributed the same way moving forward. This suggests a budget cut for the Navy will fall between 17% and 19% annually.

With the Ford class aircraft carrier running around $14 billion to procure the first ship, and the Joint Strike Fighter running around $3 billion just to procure the aircraft for two squadrons for the carrier, not to mention the remarkably high per-hour flight cost of the JSF, nor to mention the coming UCAS addition to the air wing, and stack on costs for the loss of efficiencies that occur when supporting multiple types of aircraft instead of 1 type (F-18), and before you get to other operational costs and organizational costs you find that the cost of building and fielding a single big deck aircraft carrier is simply unaffordable by any metric.

To be perfectly honest, the costs on everything related to carrier strike groups has grown so high over the last few years that the Ford class carrier centric organizational model for US Navy forces is almost certainly a worse investment than other credible alternatives even if the money did exist. The budget challenges facing the Navy simply force the issue.

August 2nd is rapidly approaching, and the Gang of Six option is the most likely idea to be reconciled by all sides. The DoD number will likely remain part of the debate, but expecting a better result means hoping for the Presidents $400 billion defense cut proposal as the floor.

Regardless how it goes down now, US Navy is out of money. It's time to start thinking.

Update: This is the memo sent out by Buck McKean:

In addition to other analysis being done on the potential tax implications regarding the Senate’s Gang of Six budget proposal, “A Bipartisan Plan to Reduce Our Nation’s Deficits,” I wanted to provide a quick analysis for HASC members on the impact on defense.

Gang of Six Proposal Impact on Defense:

Based on what we’ve read the proposal would result in $886 Billion in security cuts over 10 years. Due to a firewall in the proposal between security and domestic spending, nearly half of the discretionary savings in this proposal comes from security programs. The Department of Defense spending accounts for roughly 85% of security spending.

Additionally the proposal would require changes to military retirement and other benefits our men and women in uniform fought so hard to earn. It is our belief that this proposal raises serious implications for defense and would not allow us to perform our constitutional responsibility to provide for the safety and security of our country or keep faith with men and women in uniform. Keep in mind, since the President originally submitted his budget proposal for FY2011, defense has already shrunk $439 billion over 10 years.

In its current form, I cannot support the Gang of Six proposal.

Secretary Gates May 24, 2011:

“I am determined that we not repeat the mistakes of the past, where the budget targets were met mostly by taking a percentage off the top of everything, the simplest and most politically expedient approach both inside the Pentagon and outside of it. That kind of “salami-slicing” approach preserves overhead and maintains force structure on paper, but results in a hollowing-out of the force from a lack of proper training, maintenance and equipment - and manpower. That’s what happened in the 1970s - a disastrous period for our military - and to a lesser extent during the late 1990s.”

And the battle continues...