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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsTrumps Military Buildup Threatens to Gut U.S. Coast Guard
https://foreignpolicy.com/2017/03/02/trump-military-build-up-threatens-to-cut-u-s-coast-guard-budget-cuts-department-of-homeland-security/Trumps Military Buildup Threatens to Gut U.S. Coast Guard
By Robbie Gramer
March 2, 2017 - 4:38 pm
While U.S. President Donald Trump on Thursday touted a dramatic buildup of the U.S. military aboard the Navys newest carrier, the USS Gerald Ford, his government quietly unveiled plans to gut the the U.S. Coast Guard.
The Office of Management and Budget is targeting roughly 10 percent budget cuts for the tiny and always cash-strapped military branch. One Republican lawmaker now warns those cuts could cripple the under-resourced and overstretched Coast Guards efforts to protect 95,000 miles of American coastline and U.S. interests abroad, playing an especially big role in interdicting drug smugglers.
Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-Calif.), member of the House Armed Services Committee, railed at Trumps budget plans.
Its nonsensical to pursue a policy of rebuilding the Armed Forces while proposing large reductions to the U.S. Coast Guard budget, he wrote in a letter to the president Thursday. Cutting the Coast Guards budget would serve to the detriment of U.S. national security and create exposures that will most certainly be exploited by transnational criminal networks and other dangerous actors, he wrote.
The $1.3 billion cut to the U.S. Coast Guard in fiscal year 2018 includes a directive to scrap the building of a $500 million ship, the newest National Security Cutter (NSC).
Theres just one problem: The ships production is already underway. Shipbuilding company Huntington Ingalls announced it would build the latest cutter, the Coast Guards ninth, on Dec. 30. And now it, and its shipbuilding yard in Pascagoula, Mississippi, are adrift as the OMB directive came without warning.
The impact of OMBs direction to the Coast Guard is unknown at this time. We have already purchased long lead materials and have begun pre-production, a spokesperson for Huntington Ingalls told Foreign Policy.
The Coast Guard is part of the Department of Homeland Security, but its still the fifth branch of the military.
more...
https://foreignpolicy.com/2017/03/02/trump-military-build-up-threatens-to-cut-u-s-coast-guard-budget-cuts-department-of-homeland-security/
Brother Buzz
(36,469 posts)Scratching my head and thinking real hard
babylonsister
(171,094 posts)Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, CG. Did that help?
Brother Buzz
(36,469 posts)Lurks Often
(5,455 posts)and Coast Guard assets can and have been deployed to the combat zone.
In WWII Coast Guard cutters had their armaments upgraded and the larger cutters would escort convoys to England
Some members of the Coast Guard served in the Persian Gulf during either 1991 or 2003 or both.
Wounded Bear
(58,721 posts)Zoonart
(11,879 posts)So Mr. Build'A'Wall does not want to protect our maritime borders, fishing industry, pleasure boaters?
Every drug cartel in the world will start building submarines.
Wounded Bear
(58,721 posts)this is just conceding to them.
Wounded Bear
(58,721 posts)One of it's biggest jobs is to patrol the coasts to look for ship borne smuggling and illegal immigration.
roscoeroscoe
(1,370 posts)This makes no sense at all. Did they use a dart board?! Or do they just oppose anything worthwhile (search & rescue, lifesaving) on principle?!
wishstar
(5,271 posts)rather than taking care of needs closer to home.
Military contractors are poised to be even more enriched. Ironic how Trump managed to con so many moderates and even progressives into thinking he was going to reduce the "military-industrial complex" and keep us out of military engagements
panader0
(25,816 posts)Wounded Bear
(58,721 posts)J/K
babylonsister
(171,094 posts)the CG, and 3 family members who retired from there. I hope he's just blowing smoke, but he's batshit nutz so who knows?
panader0
(25,816 posts)but spend 30B on a wall? Isn't the CG part of border security? So dumb.
MineralMan
(146,333 posts)I can see it now:
Our Comfortable speedboats will whisk you up the coast and put you ashore and a convenient landing site in El Norte. No risk. No walls. No Migra. No problemas! El Presidente Chingaso Trump has shut down the Coast Guard, so we can get you there fast and safely. Book now! Boats are filling up fast! Departures daily from Tijuana and Cancun.