Well, they've already pulled the
Truman out of the Persian Gulf and sent it to Norfolk, to cut costs. The
Nimitz is slated to be decomissioned and replaced by the new
John F. Kennedy (the one that's been stalled).
Besides, we need to at least build the next three planned carriers, because CVN-80 is going to be the
USS Enterprise.
IIRC, they've already held off on the construction contract for the next John F. Kennedy.
Once you have a big ship project like a carrier in the works, it's not something you just put the brakes on.
They're right, something like tuition assistance is low-hanging fruit, and it doesn't directly compromise the core mission of the military -- to kill people and break things. Long-term, it'll hamper recruiting bigtime and cause morale problems and higher force attrition but I imagine the hope is that this'll all get sorted quickly and they'll get their money back.
Longer-term, I'd expect to see them start nixing expensive new toys. Hagel was a grunt (and the first ex-military SecDef to have been enlisted instead of an officer) so I think he'll direct budget authorities in the direction of increased support services. At least that's my hope.
And with all due respect to the European contingent here, your countries don't have to be able to project power into four theaters simultaneously (Atlantic, Mediterranean, Pacific, Persian Gulf/Indian Ocean). Europe, for the most part only needs to handle one or two of those (Atlantic/Baltic and Mediterranean).
Its not too tricky to make a case for the US not really needing to project force into the Med or Persian Gulf/Indian Ocean. Pacific and Atlantic I get though.
Considering how much fecal matter regularly impacts the rotary air circulator in the Persian Gulf and lately in North Africa? Yeah, we still need to project power there. The Indian Navy isn't up to snuff yet to handle the Indian Ocean on their own, especially with China looking to expand its naval operations into the area. And honestly, the Indian navy is *part* of why we need to maintain power projection in the Indian Ocean. We don't want India to get such an uncontested dominance in conventional forces that it leaves Pakistan with no option but to go nuclear-hot. The Pakistani Navy is a joke compared to the Indians, who eventually plan to deploy six carriers and establish legitimate power projection capacity in the Indian Ocean, Persian Gulf and South Pacific.
@Frumple: The F-35 is about the ONLY next-gen aircraft under development right now, after DoD finally put the brakes on any further F-22 Raptor development. The Raptor was an expensive boondoggle that wasted billions in R&D. We'll still get a few dozen of them because there are contracts to be fulfilled. But comparatively, the F-35/JSF is a good substitution. Yes, it's expensive. All fighter jets are.