Congress Wastes More Money On Unneeded Military Bases Than Belgium, Sweden Or Switzerland Spend On Defense (From Forbes)

The Obama Administration’s bid for another round of base closures appears to be falling on deaf ears in Congress — despite the fact that Pentagon officials estimate the domestic basing network has 20% excess capacity.  That’s too bad, because the amount of money being wasted each year on unneeded bases is similar in scale to what the military spends on defense of the nation and its allies from ballistic-missile attacks.  It is nearly half of what the Navy spends each year on ship construction.  So all that waste entails opportunity costs.  Most of the world’s military powers spend less on national defense than Congress spends on bases that serve no useful purpose.  I have written a commentary for Forbes here.