[CPEO-MEF] CLOSURE: "Military Cutbacks Make Sense"

[Lenny Siegel <lsiegel@cpeo.org>]

Military Cutbacks Make Sense

By THE EDITORIAL BOARD
New York Times
July 24, 2015


The Army’s plan to cut 40,000 troops, as well as 17,000 civilian employees, over the next two years is unsettling many American communities. Congressmen and senators in the affected districts are railing against the reductions and insisting they will fight to reverse them. But the cutbacks are a sensible and necessary move, and they should not come as a surprise since it was Congress that approved big cuts in federal defense spending.

Plans to shrink the active duty force to 450,000 troops from 490,000 have been known since February 2014 when Chuck Hagel, then the secretary of defense, made the proposal as part of his 2015 military budget. By 2017, the Army, which had 490,000 troops before the Sept 11 attacks and reached 570,000 troops during the Afghan and Iraq wars, will decline to its lowest level since World War II.

…

Christopher Preble, a vice president of the Cato Institute, a think tank, says his research shows that many communities where bases are closed and troop levels are reduced “do adapt and recover,” and many eventually emerge with “a robust and more diversified economic base.”

…

For the entire editorial, see
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/25/opinion/military-cutbacks-make-sense.html

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Lenny Siegel
Executive Director, Center for Public Environmental Oversight
a project of the Pacific Studies Center
278-A Hope Street
Mountain View, CA 94041
Voice: 650-961-8918 or 650-969-1545
Fax: 650-961-8918
LSiegel@cpeo.org
http://www.cpeo.org




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