There’s been plenty to criticize in Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s
almost 20 months in office, but no California governor has ever
done more to help prevent the job losses and other economic pains
of military base closures.
There’s been plenty to criticize in Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s almost 20 months in office, but no California governor has ever done more to help prevent the job losses and other economic pains of military base closures.
Remember Ft. Ord and the Long Beach Naval Shipyard, March Air Force Base and the El Toro Marine Air Station? All these and more are now parts of California history, one the site of a California State University campus, another used by package delivery services and others fast being covered over by new subdivisions.
In no case, though, has the replacement use made up for the lost jobs and revenue produced by the bases that went before.
These losses occurred on the watches of two previous Republican governors, George Deukemjian and Pete Wilson, both of whom essentially threw up their hands and said this state would have to absorb whatever losses might be handed out by the federal Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) commissions of their day.
These commissions, composed of military officers and other so-called experts trying to minimize expensive duplications of function within the military, rarely had many California connections. Their findings – as will be the case with the current commission’s – were presented to Congress on a take-it-or-leave it basis. Either the entire plan had to be adopted, or none of it, with no amendments or compromises permitted. That, too, will be true in the current round
Californians in Congress have never unified to vote against any of the previous base closing plans. Perhaps they should this time, if more than one base is tapped for extinction.
The reason: Previous base-closing rounds have taken a disproportionate toll on this state. In 1988, 1991, 1993 and 1994, California lost 29 bases, fully 30 percent of the all those closed nationwide. Half the job losses from all previous closures – about 100,000 direct jobs and as many as 300,000 from businesses that depended on the closed bases – were exacted on California. That’s for a state which makes up far less than one-tenth of America’s land area and just over one-tenth of its population.
Now the state is left with 62 military facilities, including the vast desert warfare training center at Ft. Irwin in San Bernardino County and the nation’s foremost aircraft testing center at Edwards Air Force Base in northern Los Angeles and southeastern Kern counties.
Knowing all this, Schwarzenegger last winter became the first governor to try to keep California from being victimized. He appointed a Council on Base Support and Retention headed by Leon Panetta, a former Monterey County congressman who was budget director and chief of staff for ex-President Bill Clinton. Panetta, ironically, now heads a public affairs institute headquartered at Cal State Monterey Bay, on the former site of Ft. Ord.
The council report on California’s contributions to national defense contrasts sharply to the passivity of Wilson and Deukmejian as jobs were chipped away from California.
The study found that military spending here comes to about $39 billion for both payrolls and contracts, putting the military ahead of the vaunted entertainment industry as a California economic contributor and behind only tourism as a source of jobs and tax revenues. About 279,000 military personnel on active, reserve or National Guard duty serve in California.
The council notes that San Diego is the only deep-water naval port south of Puget Sound. It points out that gunnery ranges on San Clemente Island off Southern California are the only places in the lower 48 states where ships can shell onshore targets. It also calls Camp Pendleton in northern San Diego County the country’s “premier amphibious base.”
“Give these things up and you’ll never get them back,” Panetta pointed out while submitting the council report to Schwarzenegger.
Give up the jobs provided by them and bases from the Sierra Army Depot in Lassen County to the naval landing field in Imperial Beach, and you’ll never get them back, either.
For all the shortcomings, misstatements and broken promises that have led his popularity ratings to plummet in recent months, Schwarzenegger at least realizes this. Which is why California is now making its best effort ever to stop a bunch of military bean-counters from taking large bites out of the state economy.
See the full council report at www.omas.ca.gov.
