Navy’s new budget request would retire 10 ships early, buy only 6
Navy brass and lawmakers go back-and-forth every year about early ship retirements. This year looks like it will be no different.
By JUSTIN KATZ
on March 11, 2024 at 2:01 PM
Updated 3/11/2024 at 6:00 pm ET with additional comments from Navy leadership and Pentagon comptroller Mike McCord.
WASHINGTON — The US Navy’s fiscal year 2025 budget request seeks only six new battle force ships while divesting 10, a move that is sure to raise alarms and complaints in Congress, but one Navy leaders blame directly on the Fiscal Responsibility Act (FRA) of 2023.
“This year’s budget is an FRA-capped budget and we make hard choices, and in those hard choices we prioritize readiness to deploy and to operate our fleet,” Rear Adm. Ben Reynolds, deputy assistant secretary of the Navy for budget, told reporters last week. “We prioritize our people and the ability to respond in this decade of concern while taking some risk in future capabilities.”
The FRA, signed into law last June, suspended the country’s debt ceiling and allowed the government to borrow the money it needed to meet its obligations, preventing a global economic disaster that Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen was warning would come if the country defaulted. For the Pentagon, the FRA put in place an FY25 defense spending cap of roughly $895 billion.
https://breakingdefense.com/2024/03/navy-ship-cuts-2025-budget-release-biden-cno/
