The VCNO has carved out for himself a bit of territory making him the SME on the budget and all the processes that feed it.
His greatest asset in this role is his ability, when needed, to keep things simple & direct. In an article from early this week, David Larter shows where Admiral Moran puts out a marker;
If Congress fails to pass a new budget for 2017 but relies instead on a yearlong stopgap measure — known as a continuing resolution, or “CR” — it will cut into how many ships the Navy can afford to get underway and how many aircraft it can afford to put in the air, said Adm. Bill Moran, vice chief of naval operations.
Furthermore, it would prompt the Navy to put off maintenance and that would mean more broken ships and aircraft that couldn’t get underway even if they had the money.
“A full-year continuing resolution at this point implies a lot of things,” Moran said at the outset of the annual industry conference at National Harbor, Maryland.
“With two thirds of the year gone, we’ve spent all the free cash we have to do things like deploy, to operate, to do maintenance,” Moran said. “If we don’t see a budget by the end of this month and we go into a full-year CR, we’re going to have to defer a whole bunch of things.”
…
“We’ll have to slow down some of the steaming operations around the globe where we’ve got folks deployed today,” Moran said. “We’ll have to slow down flight operations at those same locations. We’ll have to slow down training at our fleet replacement squadrons who are training new pilots to come into the fleet, which will mean manning gaps in squadrons around the fleet down the line.”Moran also lamented the smaller size of the fleet, which contrasts with the Navy’s growing level of responsibility.
“We are significantly smaller than we were just a few years ago,” Moran said. “But we have the same level of commitment around the globe with a smaller Navy. You do the math — you are going to wear out that Navy fast, much faster than we planned for.”
No one can say they were not warned – and the smart money is that no one is bluffing this time.
