Bush’s Proposal to Increase Defense Spending Could Lead to Big Bucks for Fairfield County’s Defense Industry
By Justin Hill
WASHINGTON, Jan. 30–President George W. Bush’s proposal to increase defense spending could lead to big bucks for Fairfield County’s defense industry.
“I think it’s very important for the employees and the economy of the region,” said Mark Prislone, chief economist at the Connecticut Dept. of Economic and Community Development in Hartford. “Since Connecticut does have a strong defense industry in its economic base, the consensus is that the Bush budget will only help Connecticut employers and their workers.”
Fairfield County ranks first in the state in defense contracts awarded per capita, according to Prislone. In fiscal year 2000, Fairfield County was awarded $847 million in defense contracts. Connecticut received about $2.2 billion, about 2 percent of the Defense Department’s of total contracts with all 50 states.
Bush announced his proposal during his State of the Union speech on Tuesday. His budget will be announced on Monday.
“We will see the benefit of [Bush’s defense proposal] to the Connecticut economy,” Rep. Jim Maloney (D.-Conn.) said Tuesday. “I think the defense budget will be a plus for Connecticut.”
Many defense companies are located in Connecticut, including Stratford-based helicopter manufacturer Sikorsky Aircraft Corp. and Norden Systems, which is headquartered in Norwalk.
“It’s anticipated that the company is going to benefit. We are anticipating good things to come,” said Fran DiMeglio, spokeswoman for Norden Systems, which employs about 500. The company, which makes radars and is a unit of the electronics systems sector of Los Angeles-based Northrop Grumman, is one of the largest defense companies in Norwalk. The business does $100-500 million in sales, Prislone said.
Bush’s defense spending proposal “certainly will benefit the economy,” said Katie Levinson, spokeswoman for Rep. Christopher Shays (R.-Conn.).
Defense spending has been sluggish in Connecticut in the past few years, Prislone said. But a decade ago, when the state was more dependent than it is today on defense production, “the Connecticut economy was hit hard by the last recession. Since then, he said, “we had diversification of our industries,” and Connecticut is now less dependent on defense spending.
In his State of the Union speech, Bush promised to spend whatever amount it takes for the United States to defend itself.
“It costs a lot to fight this war. We have spent more than a billion dollars a month, over $30 million a day, and we must be prepared for future operations,” the president said. “Afghanistan proved that expensive precision weapons defeat the enemy and spare innocent lives, and we need more of them. We need to replace aging aircraft and make our military more agile to put our troops anywhere in the world quickly and safely.”
Connecticut’s congressional delegation hailed the president’s call for an increase in defense spending, but some called for Bush to keep long-term objectives in mind.
“I think defense spending falls quite literally in the category of emergency spending,” Maloney said. “The issue is whether we have a plan in the long term to return to fiscal responsibility. We always have to be flexible for emergencies, but that gives us no right to abandon fiscal responsibility.”
Published in The Hour, in Norwalk, Conn.
