[Congressional Record Volume 147, Number 172 (Wednesday, December 12, 2001)]
[House]
[Pages H9326-H9327]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                              {time}  1845
                       BASE CLOSURES HARM AMERICA

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Osborne). Under a previous order of the 
House, the gentleman from Mississippi (Mr. Taylor) is recognized for 5 
minutes.
  Mr. TAYLOR of Mississippi. Mr. Speaker, in all probability, tomorrow 
the defense authorization bill for the year 2002 will come to the House 
floor.
  Three or 4 years from now, it probably will not be remembered for 
what it has done for military procurement, because it does not do much. 
It buys only six ships for the fleet, which is actually one ship less 
than the Clinton administration asked for. It does almost nothing to 
address the aging of the military air fleet. It does not do a whole lot 
as far as replacing aging weapons systems.
  But what it will be remembered for, if it passes, is the defense 
authorization bill that comes to the floor tomorrow includes base 
closure. Having been a Member of the House for three rounds of base 
closure, I am going to oppose that and offer a motion to recommit, 
because I truly believe in my heart and in my mind that base closure is 
bad for America.
  First, I think it hurts our Nation's ability to defend itself. I 
think it is bad for those people who have served our country, I think 
it is bad for those people who are serving our country, and I think it 
is bad for those people who will serve our country.
  On behalf of those who have served, a little-known fact is that about 
half of our Nation's military retirees have chosen to retire near a 
military installation. They do so so that in their golden years they 
can use those base hospitals and they can use the base commissary.
  We, in effect, when we took them away from their families and sent 
them all around the world to defend us, we took one family away from 
them but gave them another. The new family is called the Air Force, the 
Coast Guard, the Marine Corps, or the Army. When we close the base, we 
have taken the family away from them.
  They have purchased a house that is automatically reduced in value by 
the closure of that base. They are up in age, they do not want to up 
and move again, so in effect we have taken away their family doctor, 
the family grocery store, and once again, added to the list of things 
where they say we have broken promises to them.
  I think it is bad for the present. Right now, all across America 
there are people working today, tonight, early into the morning, 
working overtime to take care to do those things that need to be done 
so our troops in the field in Afghanistan and all around the world are 
taken care of.
  With the passage of this bill, they will immediately begin to wonder 
whether or not on November 7 of 2005 if that base will be open and if 
they are going to have a job. So instead of being rewarded for doing a 
good job for our Nation, they will immediately begin to worry about 
their future, and in all probability start looking for another job.
  I think it is bad because when I asked my Senate colleagues, the 
other body, if they could name one single weapons system that has been 
purchased with savings from the previous three rounds of base closure, 
they cannot name one, because there is no savings. See, the myth of 
base closure is that we somehow save money because we close the base, 
we save a little bit on salaries. However, we are going to turn around 
and sell the property.
  The part that was never explained to this Congress, but I will 
explain, is that the Nation has to live by the same laws as any other 
individual. Therefore, those laws that require properties to be cleaned 
up before they can be sold or given away apply to this Nation. Today, 
our Nation has spent over $13 billion cleaning up bases that were in 
turn given to local governing authorities because they could not find 
anything to do with them. They had suffered devastating effects to 
their local economy.
  I think it is bad for the future, because once again we are breaking 
bonds between local communities and military installations. As we see a 
shrinking force, we also see a shrinking number of bases and a 
shrinking number of citizens who appreciate on a day-to-day basis what 
those bases do for us.
  The young soldiers, young airmen, young Marines, young Coast 
Guardsmen, the young folks who participate

[[Page H9327]]

in the Special Olympics, in the Toys for Tots, who get involved in the 
Boys and Girls Clubs, they are gone. They are no longer part of the 
community. They are shipped off, and once again the military becomes 
somebody else's constituent, somebody else's neighbor.
  It is bad, because when we lose that property, we never get it back, 
particularly our bases that are in waterside communities, once that 
property is disposed of, should there be another national crisis. And 
let me tell the Members, there will be another national crisis.
  I have been in Congress for 12 years. I no sooner got here than the 
Berlin Wall came down and 3 months later American forces were in 
Panama. Less than a year later they were in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. 
Since then they have gone to Bosnia, Kosovo. Right now, they are in 
Afghanistan. Who knows, given the open-ended use of force resolution 
that this Congress has passed, what happens next.
  I think it is a horrible message that we are going to tell those 
people who defend us that their military housing is at risk because we 
could very well close down the base that houses them.
  Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleague, the gentleman from North 
Carolina (Mr. Jones), for helping me to introduce this resolution. I 
would hope my colleagues would give serious thought to this. Not one 
Member of the House has voted to close bases. The other body only 
passed it by three votes.
  I think it would be insane of the House of Representatives to allow 
this bad policy to become law tomorrow.

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