Not since the heady days of the late 1970s has the outlook for shipbuilding in U.S. yards looked brighter, but that outlook is tempered somewhat by the threat of federal budget cuts that could jeopardize many present and future shipbuilding projects. The U.S.'s decision to unilaterally eliminate construction differential subsidies and end tax credits for vessel construction in the early 1980s resulted in 15 years of stagnation, retrenchment and consolidation for the domestic shipbuilding industry. Today the domestic shipyard industrial base in terms of employment, active facilities and building berths/dry docks is approximately half as large as it was in 1981.
