You know how Republicans have, for decades, claimed to be all about National Security and gung ho for any and all military hardware? Somehow they shucked all that off this week.
This morning the local news here on the Shoreline of Eastern CT told me that the contractors that fix and maintain our submarine fleet at Groton are on furlough. That means a significant portion of our fleet is out of service for the duration.
It's arguable that that actually makes the world a little safer, but in the geo-belligerent mindset of the typical Republican, that's a terrible disaster waiting to happen.
A quick google shows that the Sub Base isn't the only sore spot.
People here who build Sikorsky Helicopters and Pratt Whitney jet engines are getting notices, too. Lockheed Martin announced 3000 layoffs.
The government agencies tasked with overseeing contracts (the DCMA) has furloughed 85% of it's staff. The Department of Defense has marked 400 000 of it's civilian employees "non-essential. Without that department functioning in the Pentagon, contractors don't function.
10% of the US manufacturing workforce are doing defense production. Here in CT it's closer to 20%. We already took a major hit under sequestration, with thousands out of work. And the ones that are not laid off are just waiting for the hammer. Our unemployment before the Shutdown was running 8.9%, higher than the national average. This will just aggravate the problem.
Whoever came up with the number of 800 000 layoffs due to the shutdown, underestimated by a lot. Half a million just in Defense. And as that ripples outward, it will effect many more, the sub sub contractors, the material suppliers, the state's tax base, stamping out the fragile recovery we've been clawing back after a dozen years of corrupt Republican mismanagement.
I have long been a foe of the Military Industrial Complex, headquartered here in The Wargasm State, but as a reality based observer, I understand that we are addicted and have to wean ourselves onto some other enterprise. A simple shutdown of Guns&Bombs Inc is not possible without causing serious hardship for our entire state. And this stunt by the Congressional GOP is demonstrating how damaging it would be.
Bad enough that new war machines stop being built, that screws our economy, but when the multi billion dollar submarines, we already built and paid for, are out of service, you'd think that the GOP's warrior hawks would be putting a rapid stop to this pointless power play/tantrum.
But that would require logical consistency and that can't be assumed any more.