Despite all the political energy the Trump administration has galvanized in pursuit of savings and efficiency in federal spending, policymakers have been overlooking a golden opportunity to save taxpayers billions of dollars per year, protect military communities, and strengthen national security.
It’s called Base Realignment and Closure.
In the late 1980s, recognizing the need to cut unnecessary military installations at the end of the Cold War, and that current law made it nearly impossible to do so, Congress created a novel process, known as BRAC, for comprehensively closing and realigning military installations that are no longer necessary for national security.
According to a new report by Taxpayers for Common Sense, the five previous BRAC rounds are collectively saving taxpayers an inflation-adjusted estimated $13.8 billion per year. In the 12 years following implementation of the 2005 BRAC round, from fiscal year 2012 to 2023, prior BRAC rounds saved taxpayers about $166 billion.
BRAC is not a very popular topic in Congress. Lawmakers worry that base closures could come with harmful economic impacts on communities they represent. They also point to the 2005 BRAC round’s higher-than-expected implementation costs. These are both valid concerns – but Congress’ hyperfocus on them has obscured the broader context and induced a degree of political myopia in our nation’s elected officials.
According to the Pentagon’s most recent widely available report on excess infrastructure capacity, the military has about 20% excess across its installations. The inescapable reality is we need a process to comprehensively address excess military infrastructure, and BRAC is the most holistic, equitable approach available.
Moreover, the data shows that many communities are able to seize the opportunities presented by closures to redevelop former base land and revitalize and diversify their economies.
In fact, looking at average unemployment rates and per capita personal income, counties facing major closures in the 2005 BRAC round fared nearly as well as, if not better than, the national average in the 10 years following closure announcements.
From 2005 to 2015, the average unemployment rate in these counties dropped from 6.35% to 5.69%, while national unemployment rose over the same period from 5.1% to 5.3%. These counties also saw their per capita personal income grow by an average of $4,220, adjusted for inflation, from 2005 to 2015. While real growth in national per capita income grew by $5,655 over that same period, the data still underscore that, on average, the economic impacts of closures are manageable.
The alternative to BRAC is far less appealing.
Former Secretary of Veterans Affairs Anthony Principi, chairman of the 2005 BRAC Commission, warned in 2015 that in the absence of a formal BRAC process, unofficial closures and realignments could still take place under the radar. As he explained, “These reductions have a serious economic impact on local communities – who are helpless to counter the Pentagon’s decisions. They would fare better under a BRAC that would provide transparency on decisions for states and local defense communities, and the means to advocate before an independent BRAC Commission.”
As for higher-than-anticipated implementation costs in the 2005 BRAC round, lawmakers could reduce these costs in a new round by learning from the mistakes of the previous one. The authorizing legislation for the 2005 round required the Secretary of Defense to give priority consideration to military value in making recommendations, effectively sidelining criteria related to cost and savings. The Pentagon then took the opportunity to expand infrastructure through realignments. It also identified new requirements for those actions after the recommendations were made, sometimes at the behest of contractors who stood to gain from identifying new “requirements.”
A new BRAC round should retain military value criteria while ensuring that each recommendation also meets cost and saving requirements. It should also establish a process for independent review of requirements identified after BRAC is authorized, to ensure any new requirements are in fact necessary.
Finally, a new BRAC round would strengthen national security by allowing the Pentagon to focus its attention on the installations it genuinely needs. According to Pentagon officials, the department’s $137 billion backlog of deferred maintenance poses a “significant and growing risk to the department’s ability to support its missions.” A new BRAC round could help reduce this backlog and focus attention where it’s needed most.
If a new BRAC round achieved savings in line with average estimated savings of prior rounds, it would save taxpayers an additional $2.7 billion per year. As it’s been twenty years since the last BRAC round, savings could be even higher. Taxpayers, military communities, and national security all stand to benefit from a new and improved process, and all stand to lose in the absence of one. After twenty years, it’s time for Congress to take up the challenging but necessary work of authorizing a new round of BRAC.
