I stayed at the USA Alconbury base whilest visiting family in the UK What I remember most was how loud it was Why was it loud? Because they were building new homes Alconbury airfield scheme to build 5,000 homes approved http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-cambridgeshire-24626952 then today this USAF to pull out of airbases at Mildenhall, Alconbury and Molesworth http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-suffolk-30725366 shutting the base down eh? In a move to cut costs eh? The base did seem pretty unnecessary Anyways, I'm curious how much money was blown to build all those new homes that are now useless and empty. Are they just going to tear all those new homes down? or will it be settled by the English? More so, I wonder who made out of this whole ordeal with a **** ton of construction cost money and the backdoor deals that were made which will go unnoticed in the media The USA sure does know how to waste their money (the citizens money) thats for sure
It is about time. We need to close hundreds of bases more. What a waste of money. We just can't afford to try to rule the world.
Hate to be the bearer of bad news but They are closing them so they can open more up in asia... they aren't closing them to reduce the budget- sorry
The idea is to use the money saved in order to spend it elsewhere, as realjad pointed out. It'll take years, though, and might be slowed down if the Russian troubles continue to get worse. Any savings won't amount to a lot when all is said and done. Where we really need is to close bases is right here in the USA. The Pentagon estimates that 20% of them are not needed. Congress won't allow base closings that amount to anything. Not here.
nah, with improving technology we just don't need as many bases do do it from. We can pretty much rule the world just flying out of Whitman AFB.
Well that would be too much to hope for. The folks who make a killing off this form of welfare for the military industrial complex won't let this money go easily.
the military budget have some comically inefficient spendings. for example, the army is forced to spend 1/2 billion to buy tanks it absolutely does not want or need by Congress due to no particular reason other than the tank factory and their suppliers are in whatever congressman's district. or that the navy is not allowed to retire 6-7 old cruisers but is instead forced by Congress to spend close to $2 billion to renovate them because well it'll help employments at the local shipyards.
the way budgets work, whatever they were spending on those bases will just be spent elsewhere. we aren't "saving" money.
so govt spending to create jobs. interesting. i know democrats support that, **** even socialist peacenik bernie sanders is down with the wasteful military spending if it's creating jobs in his state. i get that, but republicans are always saying govt spending doesn't create jobs, so they should be against this in their districts, but they are one of the biggest champions of this kind of keynesian thought. i'd love for the military-industrial complex to be using this money on valuable projects, but in the absence of that i prefer this to unemployment in those districts.
The Repubs like to make money off government. The Bush family specialized in that all the way down to Dubya making a killing off TX taxpayer dollars for his old baseball team in DFW. Expenditures like veteran's benefits are just looked upon as welfare for other people's children. Now if you could just privarize the VA healthcare and create a couple of more healthcare billionaires to lobby the government and make political contribution to grease increased profits, they could go for that. The whole privatization scam is largely motivated this, but you do have the little guy libertarian/ anti-government meme playing into it.
Ugh. Can't we just give the districts with that 20% the same amount of money to build infrastructure and pay their teachers or something
