What would Mahan and Roosevelt make of US carrier numbers?

What might Mahan and Theodore Roosevelt find striking about the modern US carrier fleet?

The mismatch between a carrier total prescribed by law and the claim that the Navy repeatedly operated below it.

The counterfactual compares Mahan's and Roosevelt's expectations with a 2021 complaint that American carrier numbers repeatedly fell below a statutory requirement. No number or explanation for the gap is offered. The distinction is between a prescribed force level and the ships available to meet it.