BRAC, Fraud, Waste and Abuse
January 23rd, 2010 Posted in The SandGram v1.0BRAC
The Defense Base Closure and Realignment Commission http://www.brac.gov (BRAC) is just another form of “Fraud, Waste and Abuse” in my mind. For those of you new to this, every politician out there with a military base located in their state wants government funds and support people to go with the funds. The base personnel spend lots of money in the local economy so it only makes sense to keep your people happy which means you get re-elected every couple of years.
Here is the latest example of F/W&A. I called up to MOBCOM, that is a place where all Marine reservists check for things dealing with pay, points etc. They are located on a former Air Force base called Richards-Gebaur which was nicknamed “Dickey Goober” and BRAC’d in the early Nineties. When I moved from Okinawa in May of 1995 to Kansas City, the Ninth Marine Corps Recruiting District HQ was on the west side of Kansas City and we moved from our location to the old Air Force HQ on Dickey Goober. The 14th Marines moved upstairs from us, and we had this wonderful new space to work in. Mind you, the Air Force does a nice job on their buildings, and for a Marine it was first class. The Marines built a brand-new four or five story office building to house MOBCOM down the street while the rest of the base was turned into some sort of college. Our Marines were able to live in the base housing there and it was a nice deal.
I digress as usual, but when I called up there for a set of orders, I was told that due to being BRAC’d, that part of MOBCOM was moving to New Orleans and the other half to Indiana. I was shocked because that building was no more then fifteen years old. What in the world is the Marine Corps thinking? Now they have to spend money in New Orleans, a total crap hole where the Marine Forces Reserves (MarForRes) is located to build new office space. Probably the same thing going on in Indiana. I asked what was going to happen to the spaces there and was told the Army was moving in.
It was then that the “Fraud, Waste and Abuse” light went off in my head! BRAC is nothing more then a government shell game used to create jobs in one place while showing a decrease of troops in another. Think about it, now they can show that the Marine Corps is saving money by moving the Marines out of Kansas City and consolidating them in New Orleans, a city so plagued by crime that the police won’t report the statistics. And—lets’ not think about the wasted man $$$ days when the threat of a hurricane approaches and they have to evacuate all personnel from that fine city to neighboring states.
In the late nineties, Brunswick NAS was closed as part of a BRAC recommendation http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/facility/brunswick.htm that just took away the states second largest employer. As I remember, this was done because some congressman there didn’t want to play on President Bush’s party line sheet of music. Same thing the current President possibly threw out to Representative Nelson from Nebraska when talking about BRAC’ing Offutt Air Force Base if he didn’t tow the line on his health care bill.
Once again, nothing is new in the world of “Fraud, Waste and Abuse.” See, the Military is a pawn that can be moved around when needed. The politicians can justify this by claiming that consolidating forces will save money. On the other sheet of the books, they can claim “look at all the jobs I created over here in this state” during the next campaign to get re-elected, while ignoring the hundreds of millions of dollars spent to build new buildings, move the personnel to staff it (consider moving 4,000 folks at an average cost of 15K each equals about 6 million just for the household move) just in the name of saving the taxpayers money.
So we spend hundreds of millions to save a few million! BRAC should be shown for what it really is–a political leverage arm of the government that is, in fact, costing us more than we care to really know. I just wanted you to know that your taxpayer dollars are hard at work. If your life was tossed upside down due to a move, loss on a house from the forced move, city turned into a ghost town from the loss of personnel there, feel free to leave a comment below, I’d be interested in what you have to say.
S/F
Taco
Tags: Base Closure, BRAC, fraud waste and abuse, Marines, MOBCOM, President Bush, President Obama
3 Responses to “BRAC, Fraud, Waste and Abuse”
By Rick on Jan 23, 2010
Hear Hear! I think you’re 100% on the money with your opinion of the BRAC commission. There are some points you raised that I didn’t think of, but the basics of them not saving any real money is a big deal to me. They also make some seemingly short sighted decisions, and are heavily influenced by ideas unrelated to saving money. All of the Shenanigans in Arlington (where they moved people out of leased buildings that were Metro accessible, almost moved a few thousand to new buildings walking distance from Springfield Metro, but instead are moving them to a transit inaccessible location off Seminary Road) have been hard to stomach. I heard that they decided that the cost of building a building in Springfield was a reason not to go there, but they still ended up building a building off Seminary Road.
I don’t get it.
By Just John on Jan 23, 2010
The comparison to a shell game is spot on. This is equivalent to claims of “saving” jobs.
By Elaina on Jan 24, 2010
I don’t disagree. But I do have a question. When they closed bases like MCAS Tustin or MCAS El Toro, was that BRAC or was it something else?
What I remember from growing up in that part of Orange County was that it became all about an issue of the noise and whiny OC brats who didn’t want the base there anymore. But maybe they were BRAC closures? Or is encroachment an issue that is supposedly considered by the BRAC when they look at various bases?
Regardless, I think that it really boils down to a political deal. People are outraged by the deals that Ben Nelson & Mary Landrieu got in that health care mess, but the truth is, that’s been going on for…well, forever. And I suspect that the move to New Orleans was a reward for someone, somewhere.
I lived in D.C. for less than two years. I didn’t have to be there for more than a couple of months before realizing how things run there. They don’t do that crap without something being in it for someone.