News Flash: Closing U.S. Military Bases Might Not Save America Money
U.S. Marines fire an M777 Lightweight 155mm Howitzer. Flickr/U.S. Marines
Harvey M. Sapolsky
It is that time again, when all the quick-fix budgeteers call for another Base Closure and Realignment Commission (BRAC), promising billions of dollars in defense budget savings if only those wasteful Congress people give up their rights to oversee defense spending and supposedly their bitter clinger grip on the bases in their communities. It doesn’t matter that it is hard to document real savings from recent BRACs. Rather, they say, here is another way to create magic money—savings in out years—that we all can use as is our preference, either for more defense hardware or taxpayer savings.
In the eyes of the BRAC proponents no one gets hurt. It is all win-win. The military gets to dump some useless and costly bases in order to maintain other facilities. The locals get to put the excess property to more productive use: say, how about a brand new international airport or waterside apartments and a first class golf resort? The vision is that soldiers and sailors are sent off to drive drunk someplace else while the local community attracts highly paid workers and their families from across the country for a new innovation center.
Source URL (retrieved on February 21, 2017):
http://nationalinterest.org/feature/news-flash-closing-us-military-bases-might-not-save-america-19497
