Posted on 02/12/2013 3:24:32 PM PST by SkyPilot
With less than three weeks to go before automatic governmentwide budget cuts, the entire leadership team at the Pentagon on Tuesday implored the Senate Armed Services Committee to cancel sequestration and adjust the continuing resolution set to run out March 27.
In an emotional hearing that prompted lawmakers to criticize their own and blast President Obama’s leadership, members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and top civilian officials laid out details of the harm across-the-board budget cuts would inflict on the nation’s military readiness and long-term effectiveness.
“Military readiness is in jeopardy due to the convergence of unprecedented budget factors,” said Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs. “We need help from our elected leaders to avoid hollowing out the force and compromising our nation’s security. Specifically, we need passage of a regular 2013 defense appropriation, and we need sequestration to be canceled.” Otherwise, the United States would have “a degraded capability,” and it would be “immoral” to send troops into battle, he added.
Committee Chairman Carl Levin, D-Mich., called sequestration “arbitrary and irrational,” noting that it would not only weaken security but also harm education child care and airport safety. “We cannot afford to look the other way and pretend there is not a huge looming problem.”
Deputy Defense Secretary Ashton B. Carter called the “twin evils” of sequestration and a year-long continuing resolution “more dangerous than it’s ever been” as the Pentagon faces its “biggest cut in history.” He warned that cuts of $42 billion by the end of fiscal 2013 would mean a “drastic shortfall in the funding we need to do training, which inhibits our capacity to fight.” The Defense Department, he added, “would have to go back and redo our national defense strategy.”
(Excerpt) Read more at govexec.com ...
"Our enemies may be irrational, even outright insane,
driven by nationalism, religion, ethnicity or ideology.
They do not fear the United States
for its diplomatic skills or the number of automobiles
and software programs it produces.
They respect only the firepower of our tanks,
planes and helicopter gunships."
President Ronald Reagan
He noted that a coming hiring freeze would disproportionately affect veterans, who make up 44 percent of the department’s civilian workforce. Layoffs would hit a significant portion of 46,000 temporary employees; more than $10 billion in funding -- mostly to contractors and small businesses -- would vanish. The Air Force, for example, plans to scale back facilities maintenance by about 50 percent, affecting 189 projects at 55 installations in 26 states, he said.
As of March 1, the services will begin canceling fleet maintenance work for the third and fourth quarters of the fiscal year, affecting 25 ships and 470 aircraft, he said. What will be put on hold are “contracts we intend to enter, such as multiyear contracts,” Carter said. The industrial base, particularly small businesses vital to the supply chain and to innovation, he said, won’t have the capital to stay in business. “All of the hard work our managers did for taxpayers to get a good deal for the government all goes down the drain,” Carter added.
Army Gen. Raymond Odierno told lawmakers he has cut 3,100 temporary and term employees from the workforce and ordered an immediate departmentwide hiring freeze. The Army has initiated planning to furlough up to 251,000 civilians for one day a week for 22 weeks. The service also is preparing to cancel depot maintenance in the third and fourth quarters, which would eliminate an estimated 5,000 temporary, term, contractor and permanent jobs. “We will reduce Army purchase orders with 3,000 companies,” of which 1,100 could face bankruptcy, he said.
“We are reducing institutional training across the Army. This will result in a backlog across our education,” Odierno added, noting that sequestration affects everything, including veterans suicide prevention programs.
Not a lot of happy news here.
That said congress had better not short sheet our guys overseas.
“That said congress had better not short sheet our guys overseas.”
.... better not? Wake up.
The gang raped and murdered Ambassador
and the murdered Patriots at his side
are a barometer of what exists now.
I’m so sick of these f’n games. Obama set this up and now he’s going to save us....somehow...
I’m a vet, but from my experience cutting out some “necessary spending” might include a brand golf course for some General Officers stationed overseas.
I’m a vet, but from my experience cutting out some “necessary spending” might include a brand golf course for some General Officers stationed overseas.
>> Obama set this up and now he’s going to save us....somehow...<<
obozo will give 2 choices: pay more taxes or else fund the military by firing firemen, police and teachers (I know they are state/local funded but most people don’t).
Yes. The nice to haves are getting cut, like the Army Heritage Days in Carlisle PA and the Navy Air Shows with the Blue Angels What’s important that’s getting cut is he overhauling and maintenance.
I am a civilian, 27 years. I have always strived to work hard and not be a typical civil servant. One thing that can be cut is some of this mandatory training for us civilians. Training called “Trafficking in Persons”. Prevention of Sexual Harassment. Etc. I totaled up the estimated hours of all my mandatory training that I deemed wasteful and multiplied it by my pay rate. It was over 3k. Multiply that by a command of 400 and it comes to over 1 million dollars. That stuff chaps my hide.
I am a civilian, 27 years. I have always strived to work hard and not be a typical civil servant. One thing that can be cut is some of this mandatory training for us civilians. Training called “Trafficking in Persons”. Prevention of Sexual Harassment. Etc. I totaled up the estimated hours of all my mandatory training that I deemed wasteful and multiplied it by my pay rate. It was over 3k. Multiply that by a command of 400 and it comes to over 1 million dollars. That stuff chaps my hide.
I am a civilian, 27 years. I have always strived to work hard and not be a typical civil servant. One thing that can be cut is some of this mandatory training for us civilians. Training called “Trafficking in Persons”. Prevention of Sexual Harassment. Etc. I totaled up the estimated hours of all my mandatory training that I deemed wasteful and multiplied it by my pay rate. It was over 3k. Multiply that by a command of 400 and it comes to over 1 million dollars. That stuff chaps my hide.
At this point, I would welcome some intervention of this traitorous administration by some patriots in the specops community.
As you noted, federal and local finances are not directly related.
The problem is that this article decries loss of civilian jobs under the DOD, even claiming that "veterans are hit hardest" but it makes threats about loss of combat readiness and military health care.
I'd suggest that 30 to 40% of DOD civilians could handily be laid off without damage to national defense and that Tricare is already being down sized, not to mention that a vet working for DOD becomes eligible for two medical and two retirement benefits, both at taxpayer expense.
Since most federal worker's labor is redundant or simply does not add value or reason to the process, losing up to half of them would not impact defense if they'd simply address the absurd procedures DOD operates under.
As to firemen, pot holes, and police, the administration and most local administrations will be certain to make any cuts painful on the average citizen while protecting their own.
LMBO!!
Ubama has his propaganda machinery running full tilt.
The DC scumbags can slash spending elsewhere and fund defense if that’s what they want to do.
But they cannot - - yet again - - raise taxes or “revenues”, period.
Your move, Ubama, you African communist piece of sh**.
Hmmm...They made an agreement that if they didn’t pass a budget, sequestration would take affect...Then they refused to agree on a budget regardless...
Sounds like a plan to me...
The Pentagon “chiefs” are in this bind because a foreign born communist plant is usurping power and using that power to destroy OUR Country, yet these same “ chiefs” scramble to kiss the kenyan’s ass while pledging to fire on American citizens, should the mood strike Hussein!
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