Where I Stand — Mike O’Callaghan: The U.S. Senate’s shame

Tuesday, June 1, 1999 | 10:02 a.m.

WITH A 60-40 vote, the U.S. Senate turned down the latest attempt to close more military bases. Believe it or not, several of the solons had the gall to use the Kosovo conflict as a reason to keep the unneeded bases open. Such excuses may sound good to a few constituents but are entirely dishonest and they know it. Americans who read and keep up on national issues also know that these hollow excuses are an insult to their intelligence. So what's new?

One of my favorite senators, Olympia J. Snowe, Republican of Maine, is quoted as saying, "the example of Kosovo reminds us that warfare in the 21st century will demand the deployment over greater distances from airfields and posts at home." So? Snowe went on to say, "we cannot escape from the fact that alternative savings sources provide more reliable long-term relief for readiness and modernization programs."

Come on senator, you mean like you folks overloaded the recent emergency supplemental appropriations bill of a little over $6 billion that the president requested. It was to be used for meeting expenses of our military forces and Kosovo refugee problems. Wisely, Congress doubled the military appropriations. Somehow you rationalized adding millions of dollars for the World Trade Organization; payment to the postal service fund; Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms; Congress; Corporation for Public Broadcasting; and, oh yes, Glacier Bay. That's right, $26 million of pork for the Alaska delegation.

At least 40 senators refused to become part of the cost problems created by useless bases. Among them were Sen. John McCain, Republican of Arizona, and the two Nevada Democrats, Harry Reid and Richard Bryan. Actually, it was McCain and Democrats Carl Levin of Michigan and Charles Robb of Virginia who pushed for base closures which would save $2 billion to $3 billion yearly. The Associated Press quoted a disgusted McCain saying, "We should be ashamed, or a little ashamed. Find me one military expert who says we don't have to close bases."

Democrat Minority Leader Tom Daschle of South Dakota joined GOP Majority Leader Trent Lott of Mississippi in voting against base closures. Lott made the silly observation that "the timing could not be worse" because of Kosovo. He also said the closures would be "one more stick in the eye that will adversely affect our military men and women." This doesn't even qualify as thin sliced baloney. Lott gave us the whole stick. It's the military leaders and military supporters like McCain who see the need for saving the dollars to be used for the military people.

Remember only last year McCain was on the losing end when voting against the nonamendable spending bill.

"Even some of the large sums of money designated for Pentagon use isn't for the needs of our men and women in uniform," McCain pointed out. He went on to say, "Instead, we bought three Gulfstream executive passenger jets, bought helicopters for the Colombian anti-drug effort, and padded the budget to pay for burying utilities at Keesler Air Force Base. We gave another $210 million of defense money to the Coast Guard to pay for its drug interdiction mission ..."

Army Gen. Hugh Shelton, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, last January pleaded for more base closures. He told the Senate Armed Services Committee, "Getting rid of the excesses that we have now ... would be very beneficial." He predicted it could save $15 billion over the next five years.

A year ago, then-Navy Secretary John H. Dalton wrote, "In the past 10 years, the defense budget has dropped by 40 percent and the size of our armed forces has been reduced by 36 percent. Yet even after four rounds of base closures, we have reduced the military's infrastructure by only 21 percent. We simply have too much overhead."

Dalton went on to write: "Most important, the Department of Defense is saving $5.6 billion a year from the first four rounds of base closings. An additional two rounds promise to save us another $3 billion per year. Those savings can go a long way to restoring the important balance between readiness, equality of life for our men and women in uniform and modernization of the armed forces."

The reasons given by a majority of the Senate for refusing to close unneeded military bases are pure nonsense. They should be more than a "little ashamed" for their actions and total political dishonesty.