Cash, I've had a front row seat for a few base closures, worked on the EISs and cleanup of BRAC bases. Both of those processes have a lot of public meetings and public involvement. Not a single community has said "that's right, get your feeloading asses out of here and give us the land back." It's the opposite:
https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/citations/ADA435331I grew up next to Ft Belvoir, knew several families who's main breadwinner had a job on post. Go to any military base and watch the stream of civilian employees pouring throught the gate in the morning. Every one of those respresents a person with a job who can buy a house, pay property taxes, shop in local stores, and eat in local restaurants. If you own a construxtion comapny, you built some of the houses they live in. If you own a roofing company, you;ve re-roofed some of those houses. And those jobs wouldn't exist without the base.
In Colorado we have a big tourist economy. Just the top three tourist activites (skiing, hunting, fishing) contribute about $4 1/2 billion a year to the state economy. All of the ski resorts are on national forest land and almost all the hunting and fishing is on public land. Take that away and all of the businesses that support all of those visitors evaporate.
Fedearl property can be a burden but in most cases, especially military bases are economic engines.
