Congress is killing the U.S. Navy: Aircraft carriers, attack submarines decaying
By Maggie Ybarra
The Washington Times
Tuesday, December 16, 2014
Politically motivated budget cuts and a hiring freeze have left the Navy with a shipyard workforce incapable of maintaining even its most valuable hardware, including the fleet of hunter-killer submarines and aircraft carriers that are crucial to projecting U.S. force across the globe.
Officials are warning that employee shortages mean completions of ongoing retrofits are being delayed, endangering deployment plans and compromising international agreements that require tight time lines.
The Navy has already warned that current projections show repairs to four ships over the next year won’t be completed on time, as officials urgently work to rebuild a shipyard workforce that dropped to an all-time low of 30,000 Defense Department civilian personnel from a target of about 33,500 workers because of budget cuts associated with sequestration.
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