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Small businesses that rely on military bases brace for hard times as budget cuts take effect

Article by: MICHAEL BIESECKER and KRISTIN M. HALL , Associated Press
Updated: March 9, 2013 - 11:49 PM

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regionguyMar. 9, 13 1:55 PM

"About 38 percent of all economic activity in the surrounding county is tied directly to military spending." Plus, consider how much economic activity in that county is directly related to other government spending: SS, Medicare, and Medicaid, just for starters. Right or wrong, an amazing amount of economic activity in this country is related to government budgets.

comment229Mar. 10, 13 5:57 AM

regionguy... true... but should it be? When the budget cuts happened because of the sequester, the military got to decide WHERE to cut. Take a poll and I think you will find that a huge majority of Americans will say that the civilian cuts would be far down on the list. We spend as much as the next 12 nations combined in defense spending. We keep bases around the world that are relics from the cold war. We keep building obsolete weapons systems to provide jobs for some legislators' constituents. And we are planning on building more and more defense initiatives, that the military does not even want. We have tanks mothballed, so why are we building more? Why the billions in aid to Israel only to have them turn around and give it back to us when they buy weapons systems? No, the military threw the civilians under the bus with the choices they made. It's time to bring the troops home, keep one military base on each continent and close the rest. I am sure other people commenting can add to the list of superfluous spending the military and politicians are doing. I hope some politicians learned some lessons about military intervention from Iraq and Afghanistan. They sure didn't learn anything from Vietnam.