WASHINGTON (Sputnik) — The United States should not decrease its fleet of A-10 attack planes amid rise of the Islamic State, Chair of the US Senate Armed Services Subcommittee, Republican Senator Kelly Ayotte said in a statement following the Department of Defense’s 2016 Fiscal Year budget proposal.
Ayotte warned that she would continue opposing the Air Force’s proposal that seeks to divest in its A-10 fleet “in order to ensure our ground troops have the best close air support they need to accomplish their missions and return home safely.”
Senator Ayotte’s comments follow US President Barack Obama’s nearly $4 trillion federal budget for Fiscal Year 2016, which aims to help middle-class US citizens, targets improvement of US infrastructure, ending of spending cuts known as sequestration, while also suggesting tax increases on the wealthy and on businesses.
The president is required to submit a budget proposal to Congress every year, although it legally amounts to guidance on spending because only Congress holds the authority to determine how to spend taxpayer dollars. In response to Obama’s proposal, Congress will send its version of a budget to the White House, which the president then has to sign-off on.
