The Military Has Found the Enemy and It Is Them

A recent story in the Washington Post described an effort to identify high-cost military spending items that could be reasonably cut without having a significant impact on its members. Maintenance of commissaries (the equivalent of discount military supermarkets) seemed like a good target if the costs of providing this valued perk could be transferred to the private sector. By convincing major supermarket chains to provide military discounts that were roughly equal to the cost-savings achieved at commissaries, military members could shop closer to home, have as broad a selection of goods at similar discounted prices, and the billion dollars required for maintaining commissaries (personnel, rent, shipping, etc.) would be freed up to allow for military salary increases that had to be deferred this year because of limited funds.
     Nevertheless, special interest groups protested and military members were encouraged to cry foul to their congressmen - which resulted in this excellent plan being shelved. Once again, the "lemming factor" won out over common-sense reasoning.
     It is not always bad when caution slows down change to minimize harm from unintended consequences. It is bad when caution is incapacitating to the extent that reasonable changes are rejected because of narrow-mindedness and campaigns from fear mongers. The military isn't the only victim of the lemming factor. Unneeded medical tests will continue to drive up medical costs as long as the public (and many physicians) believe that having more test data is the equivalent of practicing better medicine even when that data is unreliable or not useful for saving lives or decreasing morbidity.