Rep. Candice Miller today vowed to fight the cutbacks planned at Selfridge Air National Guard Base, calling the Pentagon decision to eliminate the A-10 aircraft “unfounded, unfair and economically indefensible.”
Miller, a Harrison Township Republican, and fellow GOP Rep. Tim Walberg of Tipton met with Air Force Secretary Michael Donley on Tuesday and were told that the cutbacks at Selfridge and at the Battle Creek Air National Guard Base are final, and only a congressional decision to alter President Obama’s budget proposal could change that.
The Air Force plan calls for the elimination of the 24 A-10 Thunderbolts at Selfridge while adding four KC-135 tanker planes. At Battle Creek, the C-27J cargo planes would be reassigned to a new location.
Miller vowed to take the fight to Capitol Hill and she again took a shot at Sen. Carl Levin, the Michigan Democrat who chairs the Senate Armed Services Committee.
Here is a portion of the statement released this morning by Miller and Walberg:
“… These cuts will have a significant negative impact … causing Michigan to absorb the most severe loss of National Guard jobs of any state in the country.
“We emphasized to the secretary that we did not believe forcing these cuts in Michigan represented a true shared sacrifice and that we strongly objected to the proposed National Guard cuts which we believe are not a cost-effective solution to tight budgets.
“We object to these cuts because we believe that the Air National Guard is the most cost-effective way to perform the A-10 mission, less costly and with the same superb performance, as they have most recently proven in their recent deployment to Afghanistan. As well, the C-27J provides needed diversity to our air lift capability, is also ideally suited for responding to disasters, and does this in economical manner.
“Unfortunately, Secretary Donley indicated that the Obama Administration is not open to making any alterations to their proposed cuts and all of the cuts outlined last week will be included in the budget the President plans to send to Congress next week.
“Congress needs to act to turn back these cuts to the Guard. We need every member of the Michigan delegation, in both the House and Senate, fighting for these important Michigan assets. It was discouraging last week to hear our senior Senator state in a press release, ‘the planned changes are far less dramatic than uninformed rumors had suggested.’
“… We believe these cuts are very real for the A-10 mechanic or C-27J ground crew. It is dramatic for the potential loss of more than 600 jobs. And, as we have fought for all Michigan jobs in the past, we will fight for these as well. We will not stand for unfounded, unfair and economically indefensible cuts to the Michigan Guard and will fight these cuts in the U.S. House in every way possible. It is our hope the same will be done in the Senate …”
What a load of hogwash. The usual Republican hypocrisy – cut spending, but not for un-needed weapons systems and bases. The A-10 is over 30 years old. That is ridiculous. And the C-27J is pointedly redundant to the C-130J. If they didn't need it in Afghanistan, they sure as hell don't need it in Flint or Grand Rapids.
Quatermass, thank you. From an officer on the inside of the discussion in the Pentagon who had to take part in all of the very difficult decisions that eventually resulted in the Air Force budget submitted to the Congress, I can assure you that we very carefully balanced the impacts of force structure reductions across all of the air components (active, guard, and reserve). We have an important job to do in defense of our nation, we have a strategy announced on January 5th that tells us how we should do it, and resources (a budget) determined by the Congress in the Budget Control Act of 2011. Roll that all together and it makes for some hard choices. Michigan is not alone…the reductions are spread far and wide…but read the documents that came out with the force structure overview on February 3rd. We've thought this through, nobody is going to be perfectly happy, but now that we've done our work, the response I have to those who criticize is to ask them first to look at the whole picture and come up with a better plan for our entire Air Force, not just their own local guard or reserve unit. If they can, then the criticism is deserved. But if they cannot, then give us some credit for carefully building a plan that takes the entire picture into account.