Bring Back BRAC.
The Base Realignment and Closure commission [BRAC] has a history of saving taxpayers millions of dollars a year and improving military readiness by closing obsolete military installations. Paul Gessing is worried that political support for the commission may be coming to an end.

The idea of a now retired congressman, Richard Armey, BRAC has been a simple way to reduce pork barrel spending by eliminating a fundamental element of public choice theory. Members of Congress may agree that in the abstract, the military has too many bases that are too costly to maintain and are unnecessary for the size and composition of the armed forces. But who wants to say "When I was in Congress, the Pentagon took away 15,000 jobs from my district?" Before BRAC, defense department attempts to close bases were routinely denied by re-election-minded members of Congress.

UPDATE: Here's the official site of the Base Realignment and Closure
Enter the BRAC, which decides what bases to close. It submits a list of proposed base closings to Congress, which can approve or disapprove the entire list, but can't cherry pick. That's actually good for Congress, since it gives members a political cover.

The problem, after a decade's worth of work and several rounds of base-closings, is that noises about moves to kill or delay the BRAC's ongoing work may have serious support. The Department of Defense estimates that if the next BRAC session--scheduled to start next year--goes forward, it could reduce costs by $6 billion a year. That's money that could be be put to more militarily-useful purposes, or returned to the taxpayer.

My first paper in graduate school was about the legislative history of BRAC. It didn't find any surprises. If I remember correctly, members who voted against creating BRAC--presumably on some high constitutional principal--endorsed the first set of recommendations once the committee was in place. This was especially true if someone else's district got hit.

UPDATE: Here's a link to the official BRAC site.

Labels: School choice

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