Closed House
Thursday, May 24, 2012 at 2:19PM | BFAD The Joint Service Open House and Air Show has been held yearly in the area since the 1950s. Last year, more than 190,000 people went to Joint Base Andrews to watch aerial maneuvers and see vintage airplanes over a three-day period.
And now the show will be held only every other year--because of budget cuts--according to Andrews Air Force Base spokesmen. And the Washington Post story quoted above captures how immediate the indignation was.
There's a term for such a decision: the Washington Monument Ploy. Its not quite as direct a budget tactic as Lt Gen Bud Wyatt saying budget cuts (that haven't taken effect yet) have "had a more detrimental effect on our retention numbers than 20 years of high operational combat has had."
But it's a classic tactic: saying you have to cut a very popular thing--even though it's only four-millionths of a percent of the defense budget, that's 0.0004%--is a way to try and stir up broader resentment to the cuts you're taking.
Reader Comments (1)
It doesn't matter that the cuts haven't occurred. When jobs are on the chopping block, some number of people filling those jobs will begin to look for new employment proactively. If they find a new job with similar pay/benefits that is not on a chopping block, they may take it. This will manifest as a detrimental effect on retention. And, this is what is happening in the Air National Guard.
Bottom line: people are forward looking and have rational expectations.