Ron Paul wants to build more bases in the U.S.

[Saving Hawaii]

50. Here's another idea.

Let's say we continue with drawdown as planned and commit all of the saved money towards providing civilian government employment for a few years. We give recently released veterans first preference for these jobs so that they don't need to worry about being thrust into an economy with abhorrent unemployment.

Here's one example of a job that would work well for this: The US Forest Service operates numerous crews that are assigned to reduce the fire danger throughout the western United States. They go out every day and do forest thinning projects or prescribed burns. Prescribed burns provide a substantially greater amount of acreage cleared for the amount of work done, but you can't do prescribed burns in a lot of places. Homes are too close in some case, but more commonly the brush is simply too thick and the fire will get too hot and start burning up the trees. Currently there's simply not enough funding to get a lot of this work done. But if the Forest Service got that funding for a few years, they could get a lot of the "brush is simply too thick... burning up trees" areas done, at which point they can use prescribed burns to deal with them in the future.

That sort of project could save a lot of taxpayer dollars and property damage in years to come while also providing employment so that hundreds of thousands of veterans aren't dumped on the street without recourse. And it also allows veterans to choose what they want to do. They're not stuck with what their unit is assigned to do, they're allowed to choose a job that interests them. And this is but a small example, but I'm certain that we could find plenty more suggestions from various federal agencies that could use a hand.

I understand what you're saying, but it makes a lot more sense if we do this outside of the confines of the military. The economics literature is pretty clear on that. The military literature says the same. And you provide people with choices rather than orders, which is probably a good thing for quite a few people who need to figure out where they're going in life after the military.