{"id":7775,"date":"2013-04-29T07:31:05","date_gmt":"2013-04-29T11:31:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/?p=7775"},"modified":"2013-04-29T11:37:50","modified_gmt":"2013-04-29T15:37:50","slug":"will-shrinking-the-us-military-slam-the-north-countrys-economy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/2013\/04\/29\/will-shrinking-the-us-military-slam-the-north-countrys-economy\/","title":{"rendered":"Will shrinking the US military slam the North Country’s economy?"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

Fort Drum’s 2nd Brigade Combat Team members U.S. Army Maj. Marc Beckage, Maj. Nicholas Ploetz and Lt. Col. Eric Johnson at a physical readiness training Aug. 8, 2012, at Fort Drum. Photo: Capt. Michael Greenberger, Department of Defense<\/a>, Creative Commons, some rights reserved<\/a><\/p><\/div>\n

NCPR’s Joanna Richards has a great story this morning on the ways that deep military cuts could affect the community around Fort Drum<\/a>.<\/p>\n

There’s a lot of uncertainty, but national reorganization efforts brewing in the Pentagon could mean big changes.<\/p>\n

“The post stands to lose up to 8,000 troops \u2013 or gain as many as 3,000 \u2013 in the upcoming Army reorganization,” Richards reports.\u00a0 “The changes come as the Army reduces its overall troop strength as more than a decade of war winds down.”<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, in a story this morning in the Washington Post, Zachary Goldfarb reports<\/a> on growing angst among pro-government stimulus groups that military cuts could crimp the economic recovery.<\/p>\n

Military spending is rapidly becoming a less significant share of the overall economy. As a percentage of gross domestic product, defense spending started picking up after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, rising from 3.8\u00a0percent and peaking at 5.3\u00a0percent in the fall of last year.<\/p>\n

In the first three months of this year, military spending made up only 4.8\u00a0percent of the size of the economy, and that is likely to decline more.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In his article, Goldfarb interviewed Vermont Senator Bernie Saunders.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t want to see anybody lose their jobs.\u00a0 We are in the midst of a terrible recession. When you cut military spending you lose jobs, and that\u2019s a terrible thing.\u201d<\/p>\n

On the other hand, Sanders said, military spending should not be preserved just because it keeps people employed. \u201cYou can hire millions of people digging ditches and hire millions of people to fill the ditches,\u201d he said.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

No one is suggesting that folks at Fort Drum are doing busy work.\u00a0 But there is a growing awareness that for communities like Watertown, defense and economic stimulus are interwoven in complex ways.<\/p>\n

So what do you think?\u00a0 As Afghanistan and Iraq wind down, should we wind down the military as well?\u00a0 Or is this the wrong time to be furloughing tens of thousands of soldiers back into the civilian economy?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

NCPR’s Joanna Richards has a great story this morning on the ways that deep military […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[11545,5629,4833,997,181,882,9447,34],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7775"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7775"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7775\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7776,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7775\/revisions\/7776"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7775"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7775"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7775"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}