Hurray for Ed Rendell

[CARLHAYDEN]

Recently Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell too the feds to court and won over the matter of base closing.

The Bush administration has gone too far in cutting the military resources.

Its time to stop closing bases and installations and time to increase funding.

[MODU]

For the most part, I agree with you that base closings, especially when we were already stripped down heavily in the 90's, isn't needed, but there are some bases and installations which are long overdue for closure.  I'm not sure which bases were in question in PA, but there are a few out in VA which I agreed with.  If you can shut down an old, small facility and open up a new, large one, even though you aren't saving money, is a good thing.  This is the problem with Oceana.  Virginia allowed too much development to occur around the airbase to the point that homes ans schools are in the danger zones around the base, and the base has no room to expand.  BRAC gave VA a choice, remove the homes and allocate more land for the base, or the base moves to Florida and takes the funding with them.  This leaves the state with two choices: lose money by buying back the homes and the land around the base or lose money by having the base close and destroy the economy setup on supporting the installation. 

Ahhhh . . . I've played too much Sim City in my lifetime. 

And I don't think we really need to boost our military funding (yes, shocking, coming from a defense contractor).  What we need to do is do more off-the-shelf development to make our systems cheaper and easier to repair as well as standardizing our equipment across the different branches of the armed forces more.  Right now, we are running 4 different militaries within our own boarders (Navy/Marines, Army, Air Force, Coast Guard).  There is no reason why the branches have to have their own unique systems.  It's a waste of money and human resources.  Cut out all of that waste, and you have more than enough money to bring in another 10K-20K people without raising the budget.

[AuH2O]

I don't think we need more funding, we need smarter funding.

Some bases really should go. I don't have the information and briefings to say which ones, but unnecessary bases eat up money that could go elsewhere in the defense budget.

[nini2287]

I don't think we need more funding, we need smarter funding.

Some bases really should go. I don't have the information and briefings to say which ones, but unnecessary bases eat up money that could go elsewhere in the defense budget.

I agree, though we could use a slight increase in funding as well to pay for better armor/pay for soldiers in Iraq.

[CARLHAYDEN]

One thing just about everybody fogets is that snall (especially out of the way) military installations are perfect for special ops training.

A force selected for a mission can be taken to a little used installation to train in relative secrecy.

About a decade ago Army Special Ops had to train on private land in Arizona due to the lack of suitable military reservation.

[J. J.]

One thing just about everybody fogets is that snall (especially out of the way) military installations are perfect for special ops training.

A force selected for a mission can be taken to a little used installation to train in relative secrecy.

About a decade ago Army Special Ops had to train on private land in Arizona due to the lack of suitable military reservation.

Ah, Willow Grove is a suburb of Philadelphia.  The A-10's from there were drilling over my neighborhood a fortnight ago Saturday.   They are not going to be running covert operations out of there.

Rendell's issue was that it was a National Guard base and the Pentagon can't close it without the Governor's permission.  He won his point initially.

[opebo]

The first base closings should be all overseas bases - particularly Iraq - and then about 90% of the domestic ones could follow.

[Ebowed]

The first base closings should be all overseas bases - particularly Iraq - and then about 90% of the domestic ones could follow.

I can tell you're a fan of unemployment.

[MODU]

The first base closings should be all overseas bases - particularly Iraq - and then about 90% of the domestic ones could follow.

I can tell you're a fan of unemployment.

No, he's just out of touch with reality.