Tagged: selfridge air national guard base

HARRISON TOWNSHIP, Mich. (AP) - U.S. Rep. Sander Levin says he's hopeful that a Pentagon decision to add 24 C-130 air transport planes will offset sharp job cuts planned at Selfridge Air National Guard Base.

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta recommended Tuesday that the military budget the Air National Guard planes and the 2,200 personnel needed to support them.

Levin says the announcement "is a positive step in the battle for equitable treatment of the guard." The Royal Oak Democrat says he'll press to see that the C-130s are based at Selfridge, 20 miles northeast of Detroit in Macomb County's Harrison Township.

The Obama administration budget for fiscal year 2013 now calls for cutting a net 450 part-time and 200 full-time jobs at Selfridge with the relocation of two-dozen A-10 Thunderbolt II air-to-ground attack aircraft.

A Pentagon report says planned Air National Guard cuts would eliminate about 850 jobs at Michigan's Selfridge and Kellogg bases, drawing criticism from Senate Armed Services Committee chairman Carl Levin and others from the state's congressional delegation.

The Detroit News quotes an Air Force report saying Selfridge Air National Guard Base in Macomb County's Harrison Township would lose 724 jobs with the relocation A-10 fighters.

It says Kellogg Air Guard Station in Battle Creek would lose a net 122 jobs.

Democrat Levin says he's asked the military to give him "the methodology and justification for these plans." He says he'll question the Air Force secretary and chief of staff in committee March 20.

Harrison Township Republican Rep. Candice Miller calls the cuts "a step in the wrong direction."

The budget President Obama delivers to Congress this week will spend about 8 billion dollars less on the Defense Department.  That's going to directly affect two Michigan Air National Guard Bases.