Bacon's Rebellion

Democracy Thrives in Sunlight

Virginia’s Defense Industry Might Survive the Cutbacks

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by

James A. Bacon
in

Norfolk naval base

How will President Obama’s proposed defense cutbacks affect Virginia? It’s too early to say for sure but Bill Bartel with the Virginian-Pilot says there is reason to think Hampton Roads will fare well.  The new strategy, he writes, cuts the Army and Marines but “puts a greater emphasis on mobile platforms such as Navy ships, smaller elite units such as SEALs, and more high-tech defense systems.”

The Pentagon stresses the need to protect access to the “global commons” of the world’s sea and air routes that are crucial to world commerce, which would require the maintenance of a strong Navy. Defense officials say they want to maintain 11 aircraft-carrier groups and ships that provide strong ballistic missile defense capability. A prominent role for Naval Station Norfolk would seem assured. One red flag, though, is the Pentagon’s strategic emphasis on countering China in the Far East. Might that necessitate the shifting of a carrier group from Norfolk to the Pacific?

Given the continued reliance upon special forces, the Navy SEALS base in Virginia Beach should remain intact.

Although Bartel did not address the impact on Northern Virginia, the Pentagon’s future emphasis on cyber warfare and computer network defense would seem to play to that region’s strengths in Information Technology. The Beltway Bandits may have to adapt, but they will find uses for their talents.

The implication of Bartels’ article is that traditional Army and Marine bases may suffer the biggest cutbacks. That may spell bad news for Quantico. While the defense cutbacks clearly do put Virginia’s economy at risk, there is reason to hope that the impact will be modest.

— JAB

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5 responses to “Virginia’s Defense Industry Might Survive the Cutbacks”

  1. larryg Avatar
    larryg

    Quantico won’t hurt.. several other agencies like the FBI and Homeland Security are housed there and the last BRAC moved a bunch to Quantico and For Belvoir…

    here’s a list of military in Va: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Military_in_Virginia

    but there’s a huge irony between Va Republican pols at the State and Fed level yammering about big govt spending and deficits and debt and their home state’s superior sucking of the govt teat.

    Oh… and also this foolishness about the govt not creating jobs.

    In Va… the military … it’s ALL ABOUT jobs… jobs in NoVa.. jobs in Hampton Roads.. jobs in Quantico, etc, etc…

    but if you believe the Republicans.. the govt does not create jobs…

  2. James A. Bacon Avatar
    James A. Bacon

    LarryG, I think I’ve finally figured it out: You think that the 10-second soundbites of Republican politicians culled for the Rachel Maddow Show for easy skewering represents the full range of their thinking. That’s like basing your understanding of what Democrats think on the basis of Rush Limbaugh audio clips.

  3. larryg Avatar
    larryg

    oh contraire! I have looked EXTENSIVELY at what the GOP supports. Unlike you I do watch FOX and O’Reilly and even Hannity (ugh).. but I also listen to most interviews of all Republicans both elected and running for office.

    I actually try to understand what they say they want but the vast majority of them are basically in Anti-Obama mode. I do NOT think Obama is the greatest thing since sliced bread by no stretch of the imagination.

    I would have voted for Romney over a Obama and would like have had a much tougher time with McCain had he not selected who he did.. I could just imagine McCain dying in office and Pallin becoming Prez… Eva Peron style – YIKES!

    I strongly suspect just like you – that we found moderate Republicans appealing and now the whole DANG party save for a few like Collins are just off the map. It’s bad enough that they ran the deficit to 1.5T.. but now that we’re here and they say spending in the problem – they won’t do what is necessary to get it back .. they just say that cutting entitlements will get us there and unlike you – they don’t want to cut DOD.

    That’s an impossible situation. We can’t simultaneously have a “spending” problem but the folks who say it can’t or won’t show us the cuts that we need to do to get back to a responsible budget.

    How can you support people who say we have a spending problem but refuse to specify the cuts necessary to get to a balance?

    Two deficit commission did do exactly that and yet Obama screwed up by not adopting them but what happen to those who say they are opposed to deficits and spending and are fiscal conservatives?

    where are they? I don’t need Rachel Maddow to tell me where the GOP is.

    Neither Hannity nor Limbaugh .. two of the worst blatherbutts on the planet whose only real vocabulary is “bad Obama BAD Obama”… neither of them have bothered to say how exactly they would balance the budget nor have the countless GOP officials that they have interviewed save one – Ron Paul and the GOP hates him because he says you have to cut DOD in addition to other things.

    You’r right about one thing. the 10 second soundbite. It’s what drives a lot of this these days. Obama basically gets blamed for what Bush did and for not doing what? What is the GOP Plan ? there is none. the GOP plan is basically to attack Obama and try to get him out of office but in terms of offering substantive plans – they are AWOL.

    the very first thing they could do if they were really serious is to pass their own health care proposal in Congress that would then put pressure on both the Senate and the Prez to respond. Instead what they do is nothing but attack ObamaCare …and you too.. where is the GOP alternative?

    where is the GOP balanced budget?

    where is the list of regulations that the GOP would cut?

    where is the list of things the GOP would do to rehabilitate the economy beyond their stock “cut taxes and regulations”?

    they have no legislative agenda at all.

    the most important thing though is that the GOP seeks to destroy govt. They want to get elected so they can dismantle govt.

    it sounds good to their right wing but the average American is not going to go for it

  4. larryg Avatar
    larryg

    the basic problem with the GOP is that they want a LOT of military all over the world and a LOT of military “jobs” at home but they don’t want to pay for it.

    In 2001 – they started what would eventually be a doubling of DOD spending in a decade but instead of paying for it – they cut taxes – on the premise that cutting taxes would generate additional revenues to pay for the DOD ramp-up.

    When that approach yielded a doubling of our debt and a permanent (annual) 1.5T deficit – their “PlanB” was to get the money by cutting entitlements.

    When the Dems refused to go along with that and counter-offered increasing taxes to actually pay for the DOD increase – the Republicans decided to shut down govt for all intent and purposes – something they have demonstrated that they consider a legitimate tactic when they can’t get their way and refuse to compromise.

    Jim Bacon thinks this is the Dems fault … and claims that Obama is spending like a drunken sailor but the facts don’t substantiate that if you subtract the stimulus and recognize that ObamaCAre does not add to the CURRENT deficit at all.

    Even if it were true – why accuse Obama of doing what the GOP has already done – SHRED the budget with a 1.5T annual deficit.

    apparently it was okay for the GOP to do that but if the Dems ADD to it – it’s bad, bad,bad.

    where is the commitment to cut the existing 1.5T deficit and balance the budget regardless of what additional things Obama is “supposed” to be doing?

    If you read the WaPo article about Obama’s appearance at the Pentagon to talk about DOD cuts – it appears the max that even Obama will support is about 50 billion a year.

    Now think about this. We are 1.5 Trillion in the hole every year, and the “plan” is to reduce it to 1.45 Trillion…. and the GOP is likely going to fight that.

    where are the rest of the cuts going to come from?

    Medicare Part B costs about 200billion, MedicAid about 400 billion.

    Even if you freeze these two at current levels – we’re still over a trillion dollar short of revenue every year and steadily adding to the 15 trillion and growing debt ..which at this point.. the interest costs exceed what we pay for Medicare in total.

    Jim Bacon thinks this mess is Obama’s fault apparently. Since Obama basically inherited this..my question is if he did not cause it and the Republicans will not agree to cuts sufficient to balance the budget – where do we go from here?

    and PULEEEZZZEEEE ..don’t tell me to cut taxes because supply side economics will fix it.

    I’m just looking for answers here. It used to be we could depend on the GOP to face the fiscal realities and make the tough choices. Even Ronald Reagan raised taxes when the realities said there was no other way.

    The reason we have the mess in Washington is because we ourselves either don’t know what to do or refuse to deal with the realities ourselves and Washington basically reflects that.

  5. DJRippert Avatar
    DJRippert

    The Commonwealth of Virginia is in denial. Massive cuts in defense spending won’t affect Northern Virginia because NoVa is the center of military intelligence and the military needs that. Tidewater is fine because it’s focused on the Navy. Quantico will do well because the FBI is based there and everybody loves the FBI.

    This is economic NIMBYism.

    In the real world, the defense cuts will be debated at the Pentagon until every branch is told to cut. The immense build-up of post 9/11 data gathering and analysis in NoVa will be cut just like everything else. What’s left will be debated by the pork – seekers in Congress who will try to move what’s left to their states. Has everybody already forgotten the “carrier to Mayport” issue? Jim Webb won’t be in Congress much longer to flash the memory of his military medals while trying to protect Virginia. Instead, we’ll have one of two guys whose military experience was gained by playing with GI Joe’s.

    Virginia’s General Assembly has utterly and totally failed to prepare the state for this very predictable moment in time. Now, the state’s media is burying its collective head in the sand. Shame.

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