Senate Appropriators Cut 200,000 Jobs From Defense Request

Defence Professionals and Lexington Institute ^ | 16 September 2011 | Loren B. Thompson, Ph.D.

[SkyPilot]

15:27 GMT, September 16, 2011 This week the defense subcommittee of the Senate Appropriations Committee cut $26 billion from the Obama Administration's fiscal 2012 budget request. The move is intended to align future Pentagon spending with the requirements of the recently enacted Budget Control Act. However, the cuts the subcommittee proposes to implement would destroy at least 200,000 jobs, and probably more at a time when the government is contemplating going deeper into debt to fund the president's jobs bill.

Consider the $13.3 billion the appropriators propose to delete from military investment accounts -- $9 billion for procurement and $4.3 billion for R&D. Let's assume that every $200,000 in investment spending creates one direct job, either in the government or the private sector. At that rate, $13.3 billion in cuts would destroy 66,500 jobs. But that's just the beginning, because economic models indicate that for every direct job created, two indirect jobs are also created in retail, construction, education and other activities made possible by the spending of defense workers. So the total hit to the economy from the proposed cuts is actually 66,500 times three, or 199,500 jobs.

Note that I have not included in this calculation job losses resulting from the $12.6 billion in other proposed cuts to the defense request, such as the $8.2 billion reduction in operations and maintenance. The latter cuts by themselves undoubtedly will destroy thousands of additional jobs.

These calculations illustrate that defense cuts are incompatible with the stated intention of both political parties to create jobs. If one congressional committee is considering spending billions of dollars on a jobs bill while another committee is cutting billions of dollars from defense that also would sustain jobs, where is the net gain to the economy? Does Washington really believe that building a new bridge in Kentucky creates jobs, but a defense plant or military base there does not?

---- Loren B. Thompson, Ph.D. Early Warning Blog, Lexington Institute

[SkyPilot]

Let me try and lay this out for everyone:

The FY12 budget that the DoD is struggling to get written and passed by Reid's do-nothing Senate will (in its present form) devastate the economy with thousands upon thousands of contractor, business, and DoD civilian job losses. This does not even take into account the looming "Super Committee" cuts that will be beyond imaginable.

Many DoD civilians have already been given letters (written on letterhead) that tell them their jobs are basically gone. They are offering (maybe!) some cash for those who will get out now, but the terms are very punitive - you can't be hired by any Govt agency for 5 years and you can't get a dime of unemployment.

When you saw Obama up there, chanting "Pass this jobs bill!" - know this. On the very same night, some DoD agencies were drafting letters to targeted civilians telling them their jobs are slated to be eliminated. Some of these people are disabled veterans! It doesn't matter - everyone is at risk.

Where is the media outrage on THAT one? Where is the GOP response?

It there was ever a case of hypocrisy by a President, this is it.

But - the Obama "jobs bill" doesn't care about engineers working on new fighters or civilians working to fight Islamic terror. To Obama and the Democrats, they seem to be the enemy.

The "jobs bill" is simply another giveaway to the usual suspects: union thugs, "green" jobs (which don't exist), selected minorities, and cronies.

Our nation's industry and thousands upon thousands of jobs are about to devastated.

Where is the outrage?

[Publius6961]

Senate Appropriators Cut 200,000 Jobs From Defense Request

Should have been cut from the Federal Employees added since 2009. And all the shadow government minions surrounding the "Great Uniter."

GGGGGGGRRRRRRRRRRRRrrrrrrrrrrrrr!

Entitlement cuts to come?
NO. We haven't forgotten about those.

[Enterprise]

This information needs to get to people like Rush, Hewitt, Hannity, and Levin. Yes, it is an OUTRAGE.

If there needs to be 200,000 jobs cut, start with agencies like the EPA, Energy Department, Department of Education, Department of Labor, etc. (Feel free to add others)

[muawiyah]

When federal government employees are laid off they get unemployment compensation just the same as if they'd been working in the private sector.

(That's from personal experience ~ USPS has had layoff after layoff after layoff for years and years and years ~ just not in the bargaining unit).

Second, and more important, when you look at the so-called "multiplier effect" and you see a federal job lost, and then two and a half private sector jobs also being lost, you have to remember that to collect the taxes to fund that federal job and the two and a half other jobs it was necessary to DESTROY three and a half jobs in the private sector.

It's a wash, at worst.

If Department of Defense was a money-making venture (acquiring colonies, tribute from independent countries, looting cities, that sort of thing) there'd be no problems.

[blueunicorn6]

Didn’t we already cut the defense budget to buy Democrat votes back with Bill Clinton and THE PEACE DIVIDEND? How many cousins and aunts and uncles and brother-in-laws do these Democrats have that want a civilian GS job?

[org.whodat]

Let me lay this out for you, we are frigging broke.

[org.whodat]

http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/1596981008/ref=redir_mdp_mobile

[yefragetuwrabrumuy]

Let’s examine this in a little more detail. To start with, here is the US Defense budget (2010), by major category.

Operations and maintenance $283.3b
Military Personnel $154.2b
Procurement $140.1b
R&D, Testing & Evaluation $79.1b
Military Construction $23.9b
Family Housing $3.1b

---

Total Spending $685.1b

(Budget request for 2012 is $707.5b)

Again, according to the article, the proposed cuts to this are in:

Procurement -$9b
R&D -$4.3b

Just looking at Procurement, here is a list of systems each of which costs $1.5b or more (in the 2011 budget).

F-35 Joint Strike Fighter $11.4b
Ballistic Missile Defense (Aegis, THAAD, PAC-3) $9.9b
Virginia class submarine $5.4b
Brigade Combat Team Modernization $3.2b
DDG 51 Aegis-class Destroyer $3.0b
P–8A Poseidon $2.9b
V-22 Osprey $2.8b
Carrier Replacement Program $2.7b
F/A-18E/F Hornet $2.0b
Predator and Reaper Unmanned Aerial System $1.9b
Littoral combat ship $1.8b
CVN Refueling and Complex Overhaul $1.7b
Chemical Demilitarization $1.6b
RQ-4 Global Hawk $1.5b
Space-Based Infrared System $1.5b

[Former Proud Canadian]

Broke, yes. Meanwhile Solyndra get half a billion and Reid wants millions more for bike paths. Get it? The Senate majority leader wants millions of dollars for bike paths. And he's willing to borrow 43 cents of every dollar spent to get those bike paths built.

This has gone way, way, way over the cliff. The only way out is the wholesale elimination of several federal departments. Let me include: The Department of Agriculture (which grows no food), the EPA, the FDA, The Department of Energy (which produces no energy), The Department of Education (which educates no one.), the ATF and many more. There is a growing need to balance the budget IMMEDIATELY and stop borrowing money.

On the other hand, maybe a revolution is neede.

[MIchaelTArchangel]

There are easily 200,000 DoD “jobs” particularly in the acquisition functions that can be eliminated without any real negative effects on our warfighters and on our warfighting capabilities.

After 9/11 President Bush declared a national emergency allowing retired military officers to take jobs in the civil service without having to give up a portion of their military retirement pay. The result was the creation of tens of thousands of new positions in acquisition functions that were filled by retired lieutenant colonels and colonels who knew little about acquisitions or technology.

The increase in the know-nothings at the top of many acquistion functions had several effects. It caused a bloating of the number of people in those functions. It caused an atrophy of those functions. It so frustrated many career civil servants who reported to the know-nothings and whose advice was routinely rejected often to the detriment of the programs that many senior career acquisition professionals retired at the earliest opportunity which lead to more know-nothings being hired.

If the Senate (and the House?) really want to cut 200,000 civil service positions from the DoD, they need to simply reinstitute the cut in retirement pay for those retired military officers who have not had a personal confirmation hearing. The DoD would have 200,000 vacant positions almost immediately.

[org.whodat]

Take your problem with spending up with the house leadership. That does not change the fact, that the government has got to reduce spending. I mean what in the hell was Lewinsky doing at the department of defense, collecting a pay check to service clintoon, and you can bet there are many more like her and barneys boy friend.

[Starboard]

“There is a growing need to balance the budget IMMEDIATELY and stop borrowing money.”

Good post in its entirety. Another way to cut back would be to eliminate the ridiculous and wasteful redundancies across agencies. Ironic that two of the first three agencies you list (Agriculture and FDA) have programs in the food safety area that overlap, if not replicate, each other. Might also look to consolidate the Federal Reserve, FDIC, Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, and Treasury Dept. The list goes on...

[SkyPilot]

When federal government employees are laid off they get unemployment compensation just the same as if they'd been working in the private sector.

Yes, but not if they take any Variable Separation Incentive Pay (VISP). Here is the kicker - they are pressuring people to take "something" and get eliminated now, or they can attempt to keep their jobs, and get nothing very soon.

The VSIP pay is a joke - the DoD is currently offering (at MAX!) the same amount the offered in 1994, and it is subject to Federal, state, and local taxes.

Moreover, this is what the DoD is doing: they are targeting so many jobs for elimination that disabled vets are targeted as well. They give the vets (30% or more VA rating) with a suffix code to their Group based on tenure, but won't elaborate about what it will do for any disabled vet. In other words, your job is still gone if they want it gone. There is no job protection for any disabled veteran.

Nice, huh?

Glad the illegals and the "green jobs" criminals are still getting Billions.

[Gritty]

More draconian cuts from the Defense Department... only? Soon to be added by vast numbers more from DOD by the Politburo Of Twelve and the "sweet" Debt Deal our lame Republican leadership simply couldn't resist? What a shocker!

I've got an idea. Let's first cut some of the hundreds of thousands of slugs recently added to the already horribly bloated federal bureaucracy since the Kenyan King took office.

Does anybody think any of these added legions of lard assed bureaucrats ("minorities" only need apply) were needed in the slightest? At least the DOD has a legitimate function! The other functions are mostly like cold over-used cooking grease pumped into our national economic arteries. Worse, actually.

[SkyPilot]

Let me lay this out for you, we are frigging broke.

We are $14.4 Trillion in debt, yes.

We are still spending money, and our economy is still in existence. You still are working for legal tender. Your still have that tender in your ATM account, savings account, and checking account. Yes?

The Obama administration is still spending Billions on groups it favors: entitlement collectors, selected minorities, Medicare, Medicaid, Food Stamps, unemployment insurance for almost 2 years, "Green Jobs", etc.

You can't deny this.

Here is the point: Obama, the Media, and the Democrats are crowing about "creating jobs" while at the same time they are destroying hundreds of thousands of them.

Why?

Because any jobs that is Defense related is hated by the Obama administration.

Can you grasp this point?

[muawiyah]

One of the ways you can beat up on DOD at the MSPB is to ATTACK the retention groups they establish at the beginning.

Typically a federal agency will try to make them as narrow as possible so that only somebody else's friends get laid off.

That's usually what trips them up ~ you just go back through job rosters for a decade and you can find all the little social relationships that cause otherwise honest people to turn into street thugs and thieves in the face of a RIF.

One case you need to cite dates back to the mid 1980s when Marvin Runyon was PMG. He'd come to the job from a friendship with Senator Alexander (a worthless cousin of mine) and his experience destroying the TVA personnel development process (brother in laws were welcome, you weren't, but Carvin Marvin's buddies were).

So, Carvin Marvin got the idea he could ignore the law when it came to RIFs at USPS simply because he could ~ and other managers had done so before him.

This time they screwed up because they started with a layoff of 5 and 10 pt veterans in the top management ranks.

Several headquarters employees had earlier won cases at MSPB so those were hauled out as precedents. A lawyer or two was hired. BINGO, USPS LOST IT ALL and ended up under the special obervation of MSPB for a couple of decades (and I don't think that's over yet).

DOD folks will be facing the same sort of thing, which is why you need to review the USPS cases on file at MSPB and see what rights you really have. You can safely ignore the FPM and the Reduction In Force Handbook because your management is going to ignore them as well. What they won't ignore are the MSPB veteran related cases at USPS.

So, good luck. I won a few times and so can you. Death to management (cheaters) and their running dog lackeys ~ may they all be RIFFED first!

[SkyPilot]

Let's first cut some of the hundreds of thousands of slugs recently added to the already horribly bloated federal bureaucracy since the Kenyan King took office.

You are correct.

Defense as a % of GDP is at a historical low. Right now, it is less than 4%, and projected to go even lower.

It isn't Defense Spending that is breaking the back of this nation. It is entitlements and welfare (the latter including those collecting unemployment insurance for a very long time, Medicare, Medicaid, and the explosion of the Food Stamp (SNAP CARD) program.

Rep Howard McKenon, Chairman of the House Armed Services Committee recently said:

"It is impossible to pay our entitlement­t tab with the Pentagon's credit card."

But, that is what the Democrats are doing.

If people think the economy is bad now, wait until hundreds of thousands of jobs are soon lost by devastating the DoD and industry.

We will go off the cliff into a Great Depression that will drawf anything you have seen.

[doosee]

There is a huge amount of wasteful spending in our military in nearly every area. Examples: 80,000 troops defending Europe, 40,000 in S. Korea, x number in Japan. And our nation building in the Middle East. Total waste of taxpayer monies. Add to all of this the number of veterans who will end up on some form of disability (partial or full) from PTSD and other ailments and we have a budget disaster for a long time to come.

[central_va]

I smell Libertarian.

[org.whodat]

So the argument is because the butt wipe Obummer is bankrupting the country you see no harm in the defense department doing the same thing. Ok!!!!