I don't work in the 5 sided puzzle palace, but I am betting there are other, less dramatic cuts the navy can make and still function. I think the carrier deployment and refueling cuts are "fire for effect" moves that are being used to manipulate the politicians and hopefully get them off their asses to do something. Hey, whatever works...
I am still sad that they cut TAD funding for the Women In Aviation conference in San Diego. There goes my month.
Don't bet too much, O&M is often the easiest thing to cut since all the funds aren't committed at certain times like procurement and personnel but are spread out over the whole year. Since the biggest expense, personnel, are explicitly protected and the procurement bills are already paid what you have left is.......operations and maintenance, exactly what is getting cut.