Massachusetts Aims to Buy Pentagon Influence With $177 Million Bond

April 28th, 2014

David Schulberg

The few people in Pentagon leadership positions with a real interest in getting their budget under control agree that closing unneeded military bases is the best place to start. Getting them closed has been a Herculean task, however, with politicians so desperate to keep wasting money that they’ll even spend extra money lobbying for it.

The state government of Massachusetts is so desperate to keep Massachusetts military bases open, despite them being unwanted and unneeded by the Pentagon, that they’re preparing to pony up a $177 million bond, backed by state taxpayer money, to make improvements at those military bases to try to bribe the Pentagon into keeping them open.

It’s an unprecedented and straightforward payola, and one that could set a precedent for other states trying to buy their way into keeping military bases alive, if only to serve as a sinkhole for future taxpayer funds in a ridiculously inefficient jobs program.

Massachusetts officials say they’re simply recognizing the “new political reality,” and that throwing hundreds of millions of dollars at the Pentagon is the only chance they have to keep their bases off the closure-commission’s list.

The most disturbing aspect of the situation is that they may be right, and that taxpayers are set to start being taxed at a state level to keep open politically advantageous military bases that they will have to be taxed again at the federal level to pay for.