U.S. out of Okinawa!

Matt Welch | July 20, 2009

Hooray! American troops are leaving Okinawa, only a half-century too late. Oh wait:

The plan...includes transferring 8,000 Marines now stationed on Okinawa — roughly half the Marines who are there — to Guam. When the House Armed Services Committee drew up its fiscal 2010 defense authorization bill last month, however, Democrat Neil Abercrombie of Hawaii added a provision to require that wages paid to construction workers on Guam preparing for the Marines' arrival be based not on the local scale but on wage rates in Hawaii, which are two-and-a-half times higher. Abercrombie says his provision is needed to bring skilled U.S. workers to the island, particularly unemployed Hawaiians. However, the Congressional Budget Office estimates it would add about $10 billion to the transfer's cost.