Sequestration hits Navy Readiness

 

Due to budget constraints, the Navy plans to inactivate the Los Angeles-class (SSN-688) arson damaged attack boat USS Miami (SSN-755).

“The Navy notified Congress today of its intent to inactivate USS Miami as the prudent and fiscally responsible choice in the face of sequestration,” according to a Navy statement. “Following a comprehensive damage assessment over the past year, the Navy now has a clearer picture of the work scope and cost of repairs to Miami resulting from an arson fire in 2012.”

The service said that that sequestration cuts — part of the 2011 Budget Control Act — made funding the Miami repair and other ship availabilities impossible. The service said it would need $390 million in additional funding as part of its Fiscal Year 2014 budget request to repair Miami “would require cancellation of dozens of remaining [maintenance] availabilities on surface ships and submarines,” the service said.

In March, Casey James Fury, 25, plead guilty to setting a May 23, 2012 fire aboard the Los Angeles-class submarine that was under repair in the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard in Kittery, Maine. He was sentenced to 17 years and ordered to pay $400 million in restitution. He said he set the fire because he was "suffering an anxiety attack and wanted to go home."

The real take from this story is that an attack submarine of the US Navy, a ship that cost taxpayers nearly a billion dollars to build, will be scrapped because Congress couldn’t get their act together and avoid sequestration. “No one wants that” they said. “We will not allow that to ever happen, the consequences would be devastating to our national defense.” They said. Well guys, it did happen and this is just one of the results. Nice job, assholes.

 

Now you are saying the exact same things about the possible government shutdown –yeah, right….

 


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