Who's Crying Now?

There is a lot of hand-wringing going on currently about the closure of military bases. Is this because people feel vulnerable during a time of hightened national security? Is it because they want to maintain a strong national defense?

Wrong!

The complaints come from local communities who predict a serious negative impact on their local economies, should their community's base be closed. This is a valid concern. In the story to which I linked, it is reported that

"Beale [AFB]employs nearly 4,500 military personnel and 1,700 civilians and generates $1.2 billions in an eight-county area."

Additionally, the base happens to exist in one of the most economically depressed counties in the state, if not the country, where jobs are already scarce.

But here's the rub: it also happens to be a very conservative (read: voted for Bush) area of the state. As in, "I don't want to pay taxes, I am opposed to social programs and entitlements, blah blah blah..."

So let's get this straight. These anti-entitlement republicans voted for "tax cuts", yet they want to maintain the operation of an enormously expensive military installation, which has been determined to be unnecessary; which is funded by taxpayers across the country during a time of massive deficits and reckless slashing of federal, state, and local social safety-net programs. And why do they want to keep their base in operation? On the premise that they need to use it as a jobs program! A federal employment program funded by American taxpayers. Exactly the sort of thing they voted to destroy for everyone else!

Hypocrites! Typical, two-faced, right-wing hypocrites.

Let's see them run to Governor Boobengrabber or whomever else they think is on their side when their jobs disappear and they need unemployment benefits, medicare, food stamps, rental assistance, utilities assistance, etc... That's right! When the people they voted for destroy their local economy, guess who is there to bail them out? Could it be the Democrats and their Liberal social policies? Perhaps, but that safety net may not be there for them. Those programs are being slowly but surely eliminated by the Neocon plutocracy. Too bad, Bush supporters: say hello to your wanna-be-red-state values in action.