Letter Pleads Case for 11 Carriers, Others Recommend Reductions

摘要

As the Pentagon weighs potentially painful cuts to its force structure and modernization accounts, a bipartisan group of House lawmakers is pleading its case for maintaining 11 aircraft carriers in the Navy's fleet. The Pentagon will not send its fiscal 2015 budget proposal to Capitol Hill until March 4, about a month later than usual. But the campaign to save prized programs began long before the budget drop, thanks to spending caps that will force both the Pentagon and lawmakers to rethink defense priorities. Aircraft carriers are the single most expensive piece of equipment in the Defense Department's inventory, with the price tag for the first of the Ford class of nuclear-powered carriers nearing $13 billion, 22 percent above initial cost projections. They are, in essence, an easy place to generate big savings quickly, a fact not lost on the Navy and its biggest backers in Congress.