Panel: Budget Priorities Prompted Navy Cut to Forces to Prevent Hollow Fleet - USNI News

While the Marine Corps is divesting legacy systems to invest in modernization, the Navy has had to make cuts to sustain its current force, the admiral who oversees the Navy budget said today.

Rear Adm. John Gumbleton, the Navy’s deputy assistant secretary for budget, detailed the Department of the Navy’s approach to the Fiscal Year 2022 budget request, which cut an Arleigh Burke-class destroyer.

“We built the [Fiscal Year 20]22 budget, you know, noting a change in administration and the topline that the department of the navy receives, the DoN, or the Department of the Navy, built their budget with four things in mind. One . . . nuclear deterrent, number one priority – paying for the Columbia class. Number two, for the Navy and the Marine Corps, number priority for the DoN was ready to fight for tonight – that non-nuclear deterrent ready to go tonight,” Gumbleton said during a virtual appearance at the WEST 2021 conference, cohosted by the U.S. Naval Institute and AFCEA.