Part of the problem is that the Navy can't reduce it's scope. Congress sets in law a lot of requirements. For example, the Navy has to have 11 large aircraft

Part of the problem is that the Navy can't reduce it's scope. Congress sets in law a lot of requirements. For example, the Navy has to have 11 large aircraft carriers, which is more than the rest of the world combined. This led to shell games when the Ford was behind in construction and doesn't allow the Navy to look at alternate force constructs such as more smaller carriers or focusing more on subs. Congress does this with all the branches, just look at why A-10s are still flying or the Abrams are still being built at like two a year. Now, this isn't always a bad thing. The services have not always done a great job transitioning to new technology, and have messed up their financing so bad they can't pass an audit, so a little extra oversight does make sense.