Closing Fort Sheridan and Chanute AFB: Is it fair?

By MICHAEL McKEON

By the time this column is published, Illinois Atty. Gen. Neil F. Hartigan will have filed suit against the U.S. government, attempting to prevent it from closing two military installations in Illinois, one at Fort Sheridan and one at Rantoul.

Among the grounds for the suit will be the issue of fairness. The essence of this argument will be that Illinois ranks 47th among states in the return on the federal tax dollars it sends to Washington. Hartigan has used this fairness concept before when he sued Margaret Heckler, the secretary of health in the Reagan administration, and he won. The fight this time is to prevent the closing of the two bases. It is also being waged in Congress by both Democrats and Republicans. Sens. Alan J. Dixon and Paul Simon and U.S. Reps. Terry L. Bruce (D-19, Olney) and Edward R. Madigan (R-15, Lincoln) have spearheaded the efforts to prevent the closings.

Why is this effort being put forth by these elected officials when most experts agree the chances of preventing these bases from being closed is slim at best?

The most obvious answer is that the closing of these bases hurts the economy of Illinois. Thousands of jobs that were created by these bases will be gone. Also, the spending power of the military personnel stationed at the bases will leave Illinois. In Rantoul where Chanute Air Force Base is located, some experts predict that the economic impact will be so devastating that the town itself may not survive.

Other reasons for the opposition, which may have even greater impact on Illinois in the long term, are the fairness issues that Hartigan addresses in his lawsuit.

The fairness issue starts with a straightforward question: Is it fair for Illinois, which already ranks 47th among states for the return of its federal tax dollar, to get fewer federal tax dollars in order to help reduce military spending? The questions then get more complex: Is it fair in light of the fact that Illinois just lost the supercollider super-conductor project to Texas, which is also one of the few states that actually benefits from the closing of military bases in other states? If the military bases in Rantoul and Fort Sheridan have become somewhat obsolete (many experts in the field believe they are not obsolete), shouldn't the amount of federal tax dollars a state is receiving be a part of the criteria for deciding which bases stay open and which bases are closed? Shouldn't more money be given to modernize these installations instead of closing them? Whether these questions have legal merit or not is for the courts to decide. But from a public opinion perspective these are very valid questions, which no statewide elected official in Illinois should want to answer unless they have put forth their best efforts to prevent the closing of these bases.

Another question being raised is: Does

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My firm has done significant testing on this type of question for a variety of clients. The results in general are extremely interesting. Generally, people are deeply troubled by the fact that Illinois is not getting its fair share of federal tax dollars. They understand the fact that the federal government needs money to operate on, but they don't believe that these tax dollars should be going to other states to the detriment of Illinois.

Regarding foreign investment, people in Illinois are virtually split on whether or not they want any type of foreign investors acquiring property and business in Illinois. Among those who are not opposed to foreign investors coming into Illinois, a great many qualify their lack of opposition by saying such things as "they are buying up everything anyhow" and "Illinois needs help from wherever it can get it." Few respondents give positive reasons for not opposing foreign investments in Illinois.

Among those who oppose foreign investment, their reasons are typified by such comments as "it's un-American to allow foreigners to own our land and control our business" and "they are not leaving the profits of their investments in Illinois, they are taking all the money back overseas." To a small but growing minority of the people of Illinois, the perception is that Illinois is being "colonized" by foreign investors because our economy is weak.

The closing of the two military bases here has no direct connection to foreign investment in Illinois. It just seems like the wrong signal from the federal government. Those closings will result in the loss of thousands of jobs and millions of dollars of revenue to the state, and they will do nothing to allay the growing concerns about foreign investment.□

Michael McKeon is head of McKeon & Associates, a national polling organization.

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