Trump cutting military budget?
 

Oh, dear!
Can anyone confirm? For now it has been reported by an Italian site:

Trump ?abbatte? l?F-35 con un tweet ? Analisi Difesa

Sit on your hands and ask him after his first 100 days

If you read a bit more you'll see that Donald T is looking at waste in projects and is expanding areas like the US Marines. His real concern is not getting the bang for the buck! All Govts should look at this>>

TBM, that's how I read it. His team have very carefully written these words. It doesn't say the axe is coming down either - that's an assumption at this stage. As you intimidate, he's taking a firm aim at saving defense waste across all Programs.

In line with Congressional Budget Office recommended options.....

Cancel Plans to Purchase Additional F-35 Joint Strike Fighters and Instead Purchase F-16s and F/A-18s

The F-35 Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) program is the military’s largest aircraft development program. The F-35 is a stealthy aircraft—one that is difficult for adversaries to detect by radar and other air defense sensors. The objective of the program is to produce three versions of that aircraft: the conventional takeoff F-35A for the Air Force, the short takeoff and vertical landing (STOVL) F-35B for the Marine Corps, and the carrier-based F-35C for the Navy. Through 2016, 285 F-35s had been purchased for the U.S. military: 178 F-35As, 71 F-35Bs, and 36 F‑35Cs. Current plans call for purchasing 2,158 more F‑35s through 2038. The Department of Defense (DoD) has estimated that the remaining cost of those purchases, including the cost to complete development, will amount to $265 billion (in nominal dollars). The Marine Corps and the Air Force declared their versions of the F-35 operational in 2015 and 2016, respectively. The Navy expects to declare its version operational by 2019.

Under this option, DoD would halt further production of the F-35 and instead purchase the most advanced versions of older, nonstealthy fighter aircraft that are still in production: the F-16 Fighting Falcon for the Air Force and the F/A-18 Super Hornet for the Navy and Marine Corps. The services would operate the F-35s that have already been purchased. By the Congressional Budget Office’s estimates, the option would reduce the need for discretionary budget authority by $29 billion from 2018 through 2026 if the F-16s and F/A-18s were purchased on the same schedule as that currently in place for the F-35s. Outlays would decrease by $23 billion over that period. Additional savings would accrue from 2027 through 2038 if F-16s and F/A-18s were purchased instead of the F-35s that are scheduled to be purchased in those later years. However, the Navy and Air Force are both planning to develop entirely new aircraft with fighter-like capabilities to be fielded in the 2030s and might choose to replace some planned F-35s with those aircraft instead.........

ORAC:
OK, I am done slamming my head on the desk.


Doing that drives the price per unit up further. Fine. Let's never ever learn a lesson from 45 years of acquisition history? (Not knocking the F-16 and Super Hornets, they are good planes). Putting all our eggs in one basket is a ten year old decision. Congress is invested in this, and Congress raises the money.

As expensive and off time line as this program has become, this will increase the waste and cost, not reduce it, over the life of the program.

As for waste, he does indeed need to "clean out the swamp", and the Pentagon is a very good place to start.

As for all those generals he is appointing, who is better than a poacher turned gamekeeper?

Pentagon buries evidence of $125 billion in bureaucratic waste

ORAC, a whole lot of that waste has to do with the structure of the system. Having been personally involved in a BRAC team in the early 00's, the functional choices to close bases based on requirements and cost ran afoul of LOCAL POLITICAL issues being driven by selected members of the House. Once again, an inefficient result. I could go on, but the pile of zero value added requirements thrown at the services is staggering. It leaks into everything. Who writes the rules on all that? :mad:ing Congress.

LW_50,

The "death spiral" is a long standing DoD/Congressional tradition. Most of the bottom feeders have made their money, the plants have been built, backhanders distributed. Time to move on to the next program to bleed dry.

F-22, A-12, B-1, C-27 are only the last in a long line.....

Bearing in mind the number of marines in Trump's inner circle, can you assume the B version is safest?

DF68, are they aviators? If you read the SNAFU! Bl*g the groundpounders are purple in the face at the flyboys using up the budget buying up what they consider a useless plastic jet at the expense of updated armoured vehicles.

Your gonna need to show me proof of the divide ORAC. The generally light composition of expeditionary units means Marine Air is absolutely vital to mission accomplishment. The integration between division and wing is complete, there isn't Army v AirForce divide here.

I'm sure there's some grumbling but generally there's no daylight between them.

Mr. Trump won't even be President until January 20th.

As for how much funding the US military will receive each fiscal year, that is defined by federal budget legislation created by Congress. For the most part, all the President can do is approve or veto the budget legislation submitted by Congress.

Unless, of course, he takes a page out of Obama's playbook.

1. Suggest you research the MAGTF. What you read on blogs may or may not reflect how the Marines actually operate.


2. The FY2017 budget is already in progress, and the FY2018 budget is already prepped and through both houses of Congress. As I understand it, mid to late February to be presented for signature into law.
Choice 1: Veto, and then get overridden by both houses to show this "outsider" who is boss.
Choice 2: Sign it. (I predict that his Sec Def nominee will recommend this).

Why does anyone think he'll assume the office and let himself get bitch slapped by Congress within a month? Vetoing that bill will be an own goal.

A former serving USMC guy I knew (was going to say Ex but they never Ex) once gave his dismissal of USAF on the basis of
"We on the ground taking land, they arrive at Mach 1 and disappear at Mach 1, we still on the ground taking crap and need people in aircraft that is kicking the crap of the people in front of us".

His view of USMC Aviation was "They still fly boys but they get home with dirt on the windscreen so will stand a beer for them. They know what we need"

Racedo,

Sorry, however I don't believe anything in that statement. Perhaps it's the appalling grammar and syntax which leads me to conclude you're a non-Western, anti-F-35 "hack"; or possibly the fact that I work with Marines and that is vehemently NOT their view.

Either way, I think you're wrong and your assertion is a lame troll.

1.) One persons opinion is their personal opinion, doesn't make it right or wrong, it is a personal opinion.
2.) Collective view / opinion of USMC, is as expressed by their commnding officer, (nobody else) at any given point in time, everything else see number 1............ that includes both of us as well.
3.) Not remotely commenting on F-35, as indicated the person expressing their opinion was no longer serving (he finished his service 8 plus years ago) and his views of other US Services were choice.

And then this...........Donald Trump: US must greatly expand nuclear weapons - BBC News