Some on BRAC panel say Pentagon’s $50 billion estimate far overstated

By Dakota Voice on August 14th, 2005

“A majority of the members of the independent commission assessing the Pentagon’s proposed list of domestic base closings say that the Defense Department probably overstated the nearly $50 billion in savings projected over 20 years, perhaps by nearly 50%.”

Wow! That’s a pretty big overstatement!

The report (NYT by way of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel) also says, “47% of the projected savings were from cuts in members of the military who in many cases would simply be reassigned to other installations.”

Even if the Pentagon’s figures were correct, and they’d save $5.5 billion a year from ALL these closures, with the federal budget over $2 trillion, that means an annual savings of less than 0.275%

To put that in perspective, if you were making $3,000 a month and you saved .275% of that, you’d be saving $8.25. Wow! The cost of a movie over a month’s time!

If the government wants to REALLY save money, the should stop cutting one of the few areas of our spending that’s actually CONSTITUTIONAL, and cut those that arent–say, the completely UNCONSTITUTIONAL social spending that takes up around 50% of our budget!!!

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