Yet you still cited having a 600 ship Navy as some sort of strategic peg for success? Numerous threads on structural and regulatory issues facing shipbuilding capacity and solutions, so I won’t beat that dead horse. Go read them.
Your original post purported that the metric above and interest payments exceeding the defense budget were critical issues facing the country. If that is still true, based on my previous post - You should probably be worried more about human capital.
The deficit is simple math. Reduce spending, increase taxes, or a combination of both. Caveat that it needs to be balanced at a rate proportional to the projected growth rate of the economy. Yes, our spending levels relative to GDP change as the economy grows, and also take into account inflation.
As mentioned, CBO predicts the DOD budget to flatline and decrease over the next 10 years. If you read the CBO chart I posted, you’d notice the biggest growth in spending has been with mandatory spending programs. I.e. Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security. Any particular reason why? Boomers are retiring and no longer paying into the tax system, and now incurring costs on those programs (Increased spending). The biggest solution to this deficit problem that is often over looked is maximizing labor participation rate and employment. Enhancing trade, vocational, and technical schools in our younger generation and not denigrating the value of a college education (which seems to be in vogue now). Immigration isn’t always a bad thing despite the recent partisan political commentary (because you know those heathens pay taxes, too). More people working = more people paying taxes, and in combination with adjustments to mandatory spending reform - it should do the trick.