Economic Impact of Base Closures on Communities :: Economics USA Community Essays Papers

Economic Impact of Base Closures on Communities afterwards World War II, the United States was suddenly faced with a new enemy, theSoviet Union. one time the United States used the Atom bomb on Japan, there was a race tobuild bigger and more powerful nuclear weapons. The start of the bleak War was on.This war would turn out to be one of the most expensive undertakings in United Stateshistory. Every time the Soviets would build something, we would build as well. Thesame was in reverse. It was a never-ending cycle to see who could outdo the other.During this time there were also many military bases built in what were formerly remotetowns across the United States. As these bases began to employ more and more civilians,there were suddenly towns sprouting up all around these bases. Some of them became quite large as the bases hired more and more civilian workers and the military membersstationed there took more advantage of what the towns had to offer.The late 1980s saw yet over again another change in military policy. Suddenly theBerlin Wall fell and so did the Communist government of the Soviet Union. The ColdWar was now over. As a result, the United States was left with an incredible nuclear andmilitary arsenal and no clear enemy in sight. With the threat of a recession on thehorizon, there was a study called the Base Realignment and Closure committee, or BRACset up to decide where cuts in the defense budget would come from and what bases wouldbe cultured. The subject of the Department of Defense on Base Realignment and Closurereported that in 1989 the BRAC committee came to the conclusion that the Department ofDefense could still strategically operate if they were to close 23 percent of theirinstallations. The report goes on to point out that the end of the BRAC rounds in 1995estimated the closures to stimulate saved the Federal Government approximately $3 billion.(Www.defenslink.mil/pubs/brac040298.pdf) After the impressive victory in the GulfWar, there was an even bigger cut in the defense budget. There was a sudden impact notonly on the military who now had less to work with, but the communities who reliedheavily on the military bases for economic stability. As expected, many in telling whohad a base in their district on the BRAC list, suddenly wanted to do everything they couldin order to keep the bases up and running. It was originally estimated that the baseclosures would have an effect on the population of the town through lost jobs, lost sales