House Proposal Would Stop Pentagon’s Troop Cuts, Block Base Closures

Armed Services Committee Backing Plan

by Jason Ditz

A new proposal by Rep. Doug Lamborn (R – CO), which has the backing of the House Armed Services Committee, is set to once again break the budget on Pentagon spending, aiming to stop planned cuts in the number of troops the Pentagon has.

The Pentagon expects to grow its budget annually, of course, but is shifting money away from paying for soldiers to paying for costly weapons programs, ships, and warplanes. If the proposal gets through, they’ll be forbidden from making that shift, meaning they either have to shift money back out of those other programs, or get more money.

On top of that, the Lamborn proposal forbids the Pentagon from making any base closures anywhere in the US. The Pentagon has complained that by 2017 they’ll have 20+% excess bases, and that about 33% of Army bases within the US are extraneous.

Rep. Lamborn presented the move as an effort to “keep America safe,” though a major factor is his desire to prevent any decrease in the number of troops at Fort Carson, in his state. Influential Congressmen have been blocking needed base closures for years on this basis, fearing lost votes if their base closes.

http://news.antiwar.com/2016/04/20/house-proposal-would-stop-pentagons-troop-cuts-block-base-closures/