We're gonna cut the military budget, er, perhaps not. . .

Rep. Ike Skelton, D-Mo., chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, said the committee has yet to decide exactly how to carry out a top-to-bottom review of current and future programs.


Skelton considers total DoD spending review
By Rick Maze - Staff writer
Posted : Tuesday Jun 8, 2010 18:51:52 EDT

The House Armed Services Committee is preparing to consider cuts in defense spending through a top-to-bottom review of current and future programs, the committee chairman said Tuesday.

Rep. Ike Skelton, D-Mo., said he has yet to decide exactly how to do this. He might ask an existing panel that has studied defense acquisition reform to study ways of cutting spending; he might use his power as chairman to create a new panel; or he might assign a specific goal for savings to each of the seven subcommittes.

That last option would require Skelton to make some initial determinations about how much can be trimmed from which parts of the budget, but he made clear he wasn’t going to be asking for cuts in the number of people on active duty and wasn’t willing to accept things like a smaller Navy.

Skelton is not necessarily talking about a smaller baseline budget, but he believes money could be spent on other things.

“It is not just a matter of dollars but how you spend them,” Skelton said. “There are ways to save money. How much, I don’t know.”



And then the Navy Times reports:


Lawmaker presses Navy to increase fleet size
By Rick Maze - Staff writer
Posted : Tuesday Jun 8, 2010 16:54:23 EDT

A bigger Navy is a better navy, says the House Armed Services Committee chairman, who believes ship retirements should be delayed and shipbuilding should be boosted because there is value in being able to show the flag in distance waters.

“I am of the opinion that numbers make a difference,” Rep. Ike Skelton, D-Mo., said Tuesday as he met with the Defense Writers Group.

Skelton advocates delaying ship decommissioning whenever possible. “A lot of these ships are really able to carry on for the next three, four or five years,” he said.

He also advocates expanding submarines as missile-firing platforms, including particular interest in building smaller, less costly diesel-powered submarines instead of nuclear subs.

“Missile-carrying submarines may very well become the ship of the future,” Skelton said.



unhappycamper comment: Well Ike, you guys just commissioned an aircraft carrier that will cost somewhere between $11.5 to $40 billion dollars.

And you buy $5.6 billion dollars of nuclear subs each and every year.

You bought $10 billion dollars of two Zumwalt-class class destroyers that are nothing more than target barges as the $466 thousand dollar NLOS missle system was canceled because it can't hit shit.

Give me a call - I can tell you where the low hanging fruit is.

Trim, my ass. You need a meat cleaver.

well . . . perhaps not well, but better than others