BUDGET/COAST GUARD: “Vice Adm. Fred Midgette, commander of Coast Guard operations in the Pacific Area, has a challenge almost as vast as the ocean he patrols in search of drug traffickers, with responsibilities for an area that is twice the size of the continental United States.
The Coast Guard is struggling to keep pace, seizing about 20 percent of all the drugs that come into the United States through a coastal border, as its aging fleet attempts to pursue the speedboats favored by the traffickers…
But that is becoming increasingly difficult for the Coast Guard, which has operated with flat budgets even as its mission has expanded to include intelligence and antiterrorism.
There are newer ships like the Stratton, a Coast Guard cutter, but many others in the fleet are more than 50 years old. President Trump’s new budget would cut Coast Guard funding by 2.4 percent.
The proposed reduction in money comes as the smuggling problem has become more urgent. About 70 percent of the cocaine consumed in the United States passes through a corridor that runs up to the borders of Guatemala and El Salvador. Fighting among drug cartels that control the smuggling routes has led to record-high homicide rates and driven thousands of people to the United States-Mexico border seeking asylum.”
-Ron Nixon, “Coast Guard Faces Challenges at Sea, and at the Budget Office,” The New York Times online, July 4, 2017