Say your local military base is closing,

Ft. Devens, MA shows the conservative solution:

What happened after the closure of Fort Devens is a model for how communities facing the loss of a major military installation can come together to create an opportunity for economic rebirth.

Much of this was made possible by a $200 million state bond issue that sparked nearly $500 million in private investment by the dozens of small and large companies that sprang up on the 9,400 acres that once made up Fort Devens.

"We got lucky," said Kyle Keady, then a selectman and now town administrator in Shirley. "The economy was booming and we had a plan that included contributions from the local, state and federal governments."

It's a good thing the government(s) could spare the time to think about you. It can't, always. I wonder how much money was actually saved by closing that base. And what will happen when the governments have to turn their attention to other matters. If all the new businesses there work to become independent of taxpayer largesse, it'll be fine.

But overall, the GAO reported that almost 85 percent or 110,086 of the 129,649 Department of Defense civilian jobs lost on military bases because of past closures or realignments have been replaced as the properties have been redeveloped. This does not include other jobs created off the bases.

I credit conservatives because they've moved toward privatization. Both Democrat and Republicans would want this kind of solution. It'll work as long as the recipients work hard and are honest. But it's not the libertarian way. The trouble with subsidies is that they mislead people into thinking they don't have to think and work as hard as one has to in their absence. And corruption is rampant where cash is easy to come by. People like to avoid thinking and working hard.

Here's another problem:

The plan that was eventually adopted unanimously by town officials and accepted by the state called for the redevelopment to be administered by a quasi-public corporation called MassDevelopment.

"It was a long, drawn-out process to come to that agreement," said Meg Delorier, MassDevelopment's chief of staff. "There was a lot of concern about what type of development to allow, who would make decisions over a period of time and so forth."

Full recovery would have been a long, drawn-out process in any case, but how much recovering was going on while everybody sat around waiting for the government to do its thing?