mr. chairman , i have come to the same conclusion as the great gentleman from ohio ( mr. hobson ) xz4001800 . 
i have just probably been at it longer . 
article i , section 8 of the constitution gives congress the responsibility to provide for the national defense . 
it does not make us generals ; it does not make us admirals . 
we do not tell admirals how to sink ships ; we do not tell generals how to takes hills . 
we do , hopefully , provide sound business decisions for them . 
the whole concept of brac is taking that decision-making process away from the people who begged for the job and were given the job by the citizens and delegating it to some other people . 
i did not run for congress to delegate my responsibilities . 
i take them very seriously . 
the service secretaries would come before our committee , for years they have come before our committee and said , we have too many bases . 
every single service secretary . 
the gentleman from hawaii ( mr. abercrombie ) xz4000010 and i would respond to the service secretaries , name one base that you want to close . 
just one . 
the same service secretaries who said they wanted to cancel the crusader , who said they wanted to cancel the arsenal ship , who wanted to cancel the joint strike fighter , the same guys who have no hesitation on canceling things and making tough decisions , never named one base that they wanted to close . 
we followed that up with a very simple question : in the three previous rounds of brac , can you name one weapons system that you have bought with those savings ? 
can you name one additional benefit that you have given to the troops ? 
can you name one good thing that came out of this ? 
never once could they answer that question . 
you see , brac saves no money . 
what people miss in all of this is that when a base is closed , the local communities then come to congress , as they should , and say , look , you have just put all my folks out of work . 
we at least want the property back . 
and in every instance congress has given that property back to the locals , so there is no savings of selling off the property . 
as a matter of fact , it gets worse , because our nation has to live by the same laws as everyone else . 
if an individual pollutes a piece of property , they have to clean it up before they can sell it . 
to date , our nation has spent $ 15 billion cleaning up properties before we gave them away . 
the gentleman from ohio ( mr. hobson ) xz4001800 makes an excellent point : every time you lose a base , you lose a capability . 
the worst of hurricane katrina hit my congressional district . 
i was very fortunate to be friends with admiral mullen , the chief of naval operations . 
i was very fortunate to be friends with general steven bloom , the head of the national guard bureau . 
in my frantic calls to them in the aftermath of the storm begging for their help , their first response was , where can i put my people ? 
name a barracks , name an airfield , name a place where i can put my people so they can help the people of mississippi . 
every time you lose a base , you lose a place to put those people in the event weather , whether it is a tsunami in the pacific , a hurricane in mississippi , a flood or earthquake on the west coast , a flood in the midwest , you lose a capability to help the american people . 
we are at war . 
goodness gracious , we have 140 , 000 americans fighting and dying in iraq . 
we have another 20 , 000-plus in afghanistan . 
did anyone see these wars coming ? 
the truth of the matter is , in my time in congress we have had a war in panama that no one saw coming , we have had two wars in iraq that we really did not see coming , we had a war in bosnia that no one saw coming . 
so when you close a base , you close it forever and you lose that capability to respond to future contingencies . 
above all , when some new weapons system comes along , you lose a place to deploy it . 
right now our nation is buying 30 , 000 acres in north carolina , and some people in north carolina think it is a great idea and some people think it is a terrible idea . 
we are spending a heck of a lot of your money buying land in north carolina so we can build a base to land f-18s , the newest version of the f-18 , when they come off the carriers . 
then we have to buy the land and build a runway . 
and everyone who has served knows it does not end with the runway . 
you have to have a fire station , barracks for the enlisted , barracks for the single guys , family housing for the married folks , you have to have commissaries , you have to have fun things for the guys to do when they are off duty , because we are trying to attract young people like you to come serve our country . 
all of these things cost money , and we are going to build all these things in north carolina at great expense to the public . 
with you we already had all those things . 
we had all those things that we are getting ready to buy and build in north carolina in jacksonville , florida . 
it was called cecil field . 
it had a 10 , 000-foot runway and three 8 , 000-foot runways . 
it had an excellent quality of life , and it was all paid for by the american taxpayer , and a previous round of brac closed that . 
so , please , proponents of this , tell me how we are saving the taxpayers money , how we are making the nation more secure , and , above all , if the service secretaries can not name a single base that they think is worthy of closing , why are we going to close so many bases in one fell swoop ? 
we were elected to follow the constitution . 
the constitution clearly gives congress the responsibility to provide for the army and the navy . 
let us do our job and let us not hide behind some commission to do our work for us . 
i urge members to vote against the recommendations of this commission . 
