Fedweek

Air Force officials already have said they will ask once again for another round of DoD base closings and realignments of the sort that have caused the loss of many thousands of civilian jobs in the past. The other military services have not made similar statements, but because some bases hold functions of more than one—and more such joint basing is a common result of the review process—it would be virtually impossible for any such review to not be department-wide. Congress several times has rejected proposals to convene a new base closings commission, citing the under-estimated up-front costs and the over-estimated long-term savings of prior rounds. However, one other commonly raised argument against another round of closings, that DoD should look first to its overseas structure for savings, is being undercut somewhat by a recently announced plan to shutter 15 bases in Europe. Meanwhile, the budget is not expected to contain a proposal—backed by the administration several times in the past, although not last year—to switch to a less generous inflation index for setting future COLA adjustments in Social Security, federal retirement and a number of other programs. However, neither is there an expectation of support for a counter-proposal from retiree interests to switch to a measure specific to retiree spending patterns that likely would result in larger increases.