Georgia congressmen oppose proposal to close Guard center in Savannah

April 4th, 2022

raphael warnock — Sen. Raphael Warnock, D-Ga., listens during a Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee confirmation hearing on Feb. 3, 2022, in Washington. (Ken Cedeno/Pool via AP, File)

Georgia lawmakers from both sides of the aisle are criticizing President Joe Biden’s proposal to close an Air National Guard training center in Savannah.

Biden’s 2023 proposed budget calls for shutting down the Combat Readiness Training Center at the Savannah Air National Guard Base. The center conducts air-to-air combat training missions for both reservist and active-duty fighter pilots.

Democratic U.S. Sen. Raphael Warnock and Republican U.S. Rep. Buddy Carter vowed to fight to keep the training center open. Warnock said its closure would mean a loss of roughly 100 jobs. He and Carter both noted Congress recently allocated $24 million for a new maintenance hangar at the center that’s almost finished.

Both lawmakers said it’s the wrong time to undermine U.S. military readiness when Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has made the world less secure.

“Russia is aggressively threatening the world order, and the United States must be as strong as possible,” Warnock said in a statement.
Carter issued a statement saying that Biden’s budget shows that “clearly, he doesn’t value our defense.”