Cutting Dependency on Defense Dollars

Lloyd J. Dumas makes sound arguments for Orange County to convert from military dependence to a more balanced marketplace (“Act of Aggression Needed to Convert Military Economy,” Feb. 18); however, he misses two vital points: (1) the fact that local industry alone cannot furnish the means for such a conversion and (2) that recognition of the need for this conversion comes late to Orange County, which is already suffering deeply from its military-dependence economy.

Even if the federal defense budget is trimmed slightly in 1990, it is very possible that unemployment will grow for multitudes of specialized professional workers. This unemployment started years ago in Orange County because most defense contractors in the county felt threatened by inflation coupled with a slowdown in funding from their customers.

The publicity given to proposals for slashing the defense budget, and in some cases complete elimination of that budget, has of itself created an unstable economy here. To verify this situation, one need only to visit a few residential areas and notice the many “For Sale” signs, cruise by a few large shopping malls to find the empty stores and even buildings that were formerly housed by large department stores, chat with a few leasing agents who have been unlucky for years in trying to lease large commercial acreages.

Only if local governments, residents, and industry leaders in the county get together to attack this problem will there ever be an effective solution to it. No amount of retraining on the part of a local defense contractor will do the job of reducing unemployment because too many would-be workers are now out of work. This unemployment, especially of professional engineers and scientists, is crippling the entire marketplace because their homes are up for sale and stores in their neighborhoods have gone bankrupt.

Those who argue for huge cuts in the defense budget to ease the entire federal budget (and the taxpayer) should consider what income loss to the federal budget is caused by the unemployment of workers. Many elderly men and women are fully capable of working and paying their taxes without depending upon unemployment benefits or Social Security benefits. If we reduced Social Security outlays by reducing the number of recipients this way, we could have a reduced federal budget without harming any particular sector of the economy to get to that end.

SHELDON J. KARLAN

Buena Park