There is enough political support for the Coast Guard to prevent massive cuts along the lines of what appeared in the predecisional budget draft, said Bryan Clark, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments. But that doesn’t mean the service will receive the money it was aiming for in its five-year budget plan. “You may find that they do end up with some kind of reduction because the negotiated result ends up being between the two” numbers proposed by the White House and the Coast Guard, he said. “Then the question will be: can they make the cuts in such a way that they [don’t] take it all out of procurement or modernization? … They are in a very, very vulnerable position right now having three major programs in the procurement pipeline,” he added.
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