
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, August 4, 1993                   TAG: 9309090306
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A8   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

ROBB, WARNER

A FEDERAL commission's plan to close military bases nationwide will mean the net loss of about 9,800 defense-related jobs in Virginia. The state's two U.S. senators, Republican John Warner and Democrat Charles Robb, showed political courage in voting for - yes, for - the plan.

The loss of jobs is, of course, painful - and not just to individuals who hold them. When military bases are scaled down or closed, the ripple effect hurts the profitability of nearby businesses and revenues for public services statewide and in the local communities that have hosted the military installations.

But the purpose of military bases is not to generate private profits or protect state and local tax bases. Their purpose is national security.

With the collapse of Soviet communism, America's military needs have changed dramatically. To continue operating installations whose existence are no longer militarily justifiable, in a nation hobbled by debt and deficits, would itself pose a type of threat to the national security.

So credit Warner and Robb. As members of the Senate's Armed Services Committee, they voted for the nation's best interests. And in doing so, they resisted the urgings of Gov. Doug Wilder and others to cast a myopic vote to protect Virginia's provincial interests.

For Robb particularly, it must have been a tough vote - since he faces re-election next year, and fellow-Democrat Wilder is threatening to run against him. What is in the nation's long-term interest is not necessarily in Robb's (or Warner's) short-term political self-interest.

Like many governors, Wilder has been quick enough to issue general criticisms of the the federal government`s deficit spending. Wilder has been quick, too, to criticize Robb for supporting President Clinton's proposed tax increases before, by Wilder's measure, they've supported sufficiently deep spending cuts.

Yet now, when Warner and Robb vote in committee for difficult spending cuts, Wilder rakes them over the coals - simply because the cuts will be felt in Virginia. This is unseemly at best, deeply hypocritical at worst.

The senators did right. When the base-closing plan comes up for a vote by the full Senate (likely this week), they should stick to their guns.

As both a governor and a would-be senator, meanwhile, Wilder might do better to put his energies into developing defense-conversion strategies for Virginia, rather than criticizing efforts to reduce unnecessary defense spending.

by CNB