Senator Thune and Governer Rounds were on Big Story with John Gibson:
GIBSON: one of the biggers closures is South Dakota's Ellsworth, the second largest employer in the state. joining me, senator Thune and mike rounds. why shouldn't else worth air force base be closed?
ROUNDS where would you like to begin?
GIBSON: your number one reason.
ROUNDS ok. first of all, b1b proved to be the platform to be used during the most recent wars. i don't know why they would ever want to put all of our eggs in one basket. the last time we did something like this was before pearl harbor. they are looking at moving all the b11b's into one military base. right now they have them in two military bases. at least there is some difers if i indication right now. at this stage of the game to place them all at one location we don't believe is the right military move to make. second of all -- this is the part we are talking about is the fact that part of the discussion has to be the economic impact, state by state. and south dakota right now, as you said, this is the elimination of our second largest employer, along with that, these jobs in a rural state are a lot tougher to replace than what they are in other areas, as well.
GIBSON: senator, you're a republican senator. you're sitting next to a republican governor. there is a republican president in the white house. there is a republican senate, a republican house. are you getting jobbed by your republicans?
THUNE: well, obviously, john, this is a decision that as governor rounds noted, we disagree with. It was -- the pentagon is dead wrong. We think they made a grave error in judgment with respect to the military value criteria that is supposed to be looked at when they examine bases. Also the economic impact. The governor mentioned this is the second largest employer. And frankly, at some -- some team of analysts in the pentagon, they went through this process concluded that Ellsworth should be on this list. We happen to disagree. there are a number of reasons. As the governor mentioned, we don't think at a time when we are at war we should put all our eggs in one basket. We put all our bombers at one base that puts news a vulnerable position. Couple that with the recent release of the BRAC, overseas BRAC report which suggested that we need to move slowly, because we don't really know what we are going to do in terms of our overall military strategy. There is a QDR, quadrennial defense review coming out in February which will lay out the military's long-term strategy. those are three things, right there, that we think point to the need to slow this process down, and frankly, we just absolutely believe that our base here in South Dakota fits in with the criteria that military uses to gauge military value.
GIBSON: before i go back to the governor it's $49 billion. republicans are always concerned with saving money. we have a big war bill going on right now. as a senator, don't you want to save this money?
THUNE: You know, john, we're very concerned about the federal budget. But frankly the federal government on defense spends $440 billion annually. You’re talking about $2 billion annual savings for all these bases. And in my argument, the pentagon spills that much money every day. I mean, frankly, we need to be looking at what's going to keep this country safe and secure, when we're fighting a war on terror. We are in a war. We have people who have said the overseas BRAC commission report, slow this down. We are concerned we are not going -- that we are going to weaken our global posture if we move too quickly on base closing. We are looking at overseas bases right now. We shouldn't close one base in this country until the overseas base decisions have been made. And furthermore, until we know what that overall military strategy is, going forward.
GIBSON: governor, you know, the base closings happen every so often. and it causes a lot of pain and states recover. today, republican governor arnold schwarzenegger said this is not so bad. the country has to consolidate these bases and so forth. is this just a parochial local issue to your state that really people in other states probably shouldn't care about?
ROUNDS: well, it's interesting that you would even suggest it in that light. Because what we want to talk about first of all is the military preparedness of this country and the military objectives which should be met with the proposals made by the pentagon. We don't think that they are being met in this particular case. We don't think it's right to put all the b1b's at one base. But why Ellsworth in particular? We have wide open airspaces all around us. Expansion is capable here. They are supposed to be making choices that will last us the next 25 years. Think about the rest of the country and the number of different bases that have encroachment on them right now. Ellsworth does not have that problem. in fact the community of rapids city and the region around Ellsworth has done everything they could to allow Ellsworth to expand. along with that, right now in terms of our economic issues here, we are not alone. We have three other states, just going to name them off. North Dakota, our state of South Dakota, Alaska and Maine, together, those three of the total net number of jobs, that are impacted, we make up 68% of the total net number of jobs lost in four rural states. I wonder if that's objective determination or if it's just by accident.
GIBSON: governor mike rounds of South Dakota and the republican senator of that state, John Thune, thanks to both of you. Appreciate it.
ROUNDS: thanks, john.
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