Lawmakers Want to Shrink Army, Grow Navy
2/28/2022
By Jon Harper
The Navy needs a bigger slice of the budget pie to grow its fleet. However, changing the traditional formula for resource allocation among the services will be difficult to pull off politically, according to members of the House Armed Services Committee.
Seapower advocates have been banging the drum about the need for more funding for shipbuilding.
“I want a bigger Navy, a larger surface fleet in particular,” Rep. Mike Gallagher, R-Wisc., said during a panel at the Surface Navy Association’s annual symposium. “Sign me up for as many ships as we can build.”
For fiscal year 2022, the Biden administration requested approximately $164 billion for the Navy — including $18.1 billion for construction of new ships — roughly on par with the topline sought for the Army and Air Force. Those figures do not include requested funding for the Marine Corps and Space Force, which are separate branches of the military but fall under the Department of the Navy and Department of the Air Force, respectively. As of press time, Congress had yet to pass a full-year appropriations bill for 2022.
https://www.nationaldefensemagazine.org/articles/2022/2/28/lawmakers-want-to-shrink-army-grow-navy
