![]() ![]() And the Republican-led Senate will most likely make changes, too, to reflect home turf political pressures.Ĭourtney said he is confident Congress will address Trump’s “incoherent decision” in the defense legislation. The Democratic majority in the House guarantees that major revisions will be made in the spending plan, both domestic and military. The president’s budget proposal marks the start of a long congressional review. Even if Trump’s budget survives intact, which is virtually impossible because of an array of opposition in Congress, the impact on Electric Boat’s Groton and Quonset Point, R.I., shipyards will not be felt for several years in the future. ![]() However, Electric Boat and thousands of suppliers nationwide and in Connecticut depend on billions of dollars in Pentagon spending. The project will likely engage many Connecticut aerospace companies. Spending at NASA would rise by 12% as Trump seeks to prepare for space travel to Mars. Not all Connecticut defense-related businesses take a hit in the president’s budget. “They have urgently warned us that we need more submarine construction, not less, in order to mitigate the nearly 20% reduction in the fleet we presently face within this decade.”Ĭongress has sustained a construction rate of two submarines a year since 2011 and moving away from that plan “makes no sense,” he said.Ĭourtney said Defense Department leadership was “unable to withstand the pressure to use the shipbuilding account as a piggy bank” for other spending priorities of Trump’s. “Year after year, Congress has heard from Navy leaders, combatant commanders and experts about the growing demand for submarine capabilities as countries like China and Russia step up their undersea activity,” he said. “It’s impossible to square this plan with the administration’s national defense strategy and its claim that it supports a 355-ship fleet,” he said.Įliminating a Virginia-class submarine is “particularly at odds with our national security priorities,” Courtney said. The $19.9 billion shipbuilding request is nearly 17% lower than current funding levels and proposes just six combatant vessels, the fewest in a decade, said Courtney, a member of the House Armed Services Committee and chairman of the House Seapower and Projection Forces Subcommittee. defenses “never deteriorate to the point that we have seen in the past.” Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., and a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, called it a “deeply flawed proposal” that departs from a long-standing bipartisan commitment to America’s undersea warfare.Īt the same time, he said, the administration is rebuilding the military to make sure U.S. ![]() “This weak, pathetic request for eight ships - of which two are tugboats - is not only fewer ships than 2020, but fewer ships than the Navy told us last year it planned for 2021,” he said. Joe Courtney, the Democratic congressman whose district includes the General Dynamics Electric Boat shipyard in Groton. The proposal, part of Trump’s $4.8 trillion budget that has drawn fire from Democrats over other spending priorities, contradicts the Navy’s 2016 “force structure assessment” calling for 355 ships, including 66 attack submarines, said Rep. President Donald Trump has proposed cutting one Virginia-class submarine from production, drawing protests Monday from Connecticut’s congressional delegation over the reversal in defense policy and a possible threat to a critical part of the state’s manufacturing base.
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