Many federal workers facing furloughs are veterans

Washington Post ^ | 13 Feb 13 | Steve Vogel

[SkyPilot]

If the federal government is forced to furlough civilian employees in the event of sequestration, the burden will fall heavily on a population that Congress and the White House have vowed to support: veterans.

More than two out of five of the approximately 800,000 Department of Defense employees facing furloughs are veterans, Deputy Defense Secretary Ashton Carter said Wednesday. “Forty-four percent of them are veterans,” Carter told the House Armed Services Committee during a hearing on the potential effect of sequestration on the military. ”Very soon we’re going to have to furlough the great majority of them.”

The Pentagon expects to furlough its civilian employees for the maximum statutory length of 22 days between the beginning of April and the end of the year, Carter said. That will amount to 20 percent of their pay, he noted.

“So there’s a real human impact here,” Carter said. ” … We’re asking all those people who are furloughed to give back a fifth of their salary.”

Across the federal workforce of approximately 2 million employees, about 27.3 percent are veterans, according to new figures for fiscal 2011 from the Office of Personnel Management. More than a quarter of the veteran employees are disabled, according to the OPM.

The furloughs, together with a federal hiring freeze, no pay raises for three years, contractor layoffs...

[SkyPilot]

It was something like this from Rep Duncan Hunter (R-CA):

“It’s not just Congress’s fault and it’s not just the White House’s fault. It’s also the military’s!”

It was a very strange and awkward exchange. Hunter even defended the Obama White House. What I think it signaled was the there is going to be a villain in all of this when the grenade goes off - and the Republicans realize they are the ones who have been telling everyone they are overjoyed to pull the pin.

As the bad news keeps on coming, they want to hand the pin to someone else and say: "Look! He pulled it!"

[SkyPilot]

I agree, but Defense is the agency in the biggest trouble because they have to absorb 50% of the cuts. That was the wonderful "formula" Congress signed up to, and the Republicans voted overwhelmingly for. So did Democrats. I think it passed with at least 70 votes in the Senate alone, which is a huge margin for any bill.

I am not completely sure on math here, so forgive me. But what I read today was that the DoD "bill" to cough up was 13% for this year (because of the delay in January), and now only 5% for other Federal agencies.

So, civilian DoD employees working aircraft maintenance on the flight-lines are going to get hit much harder with furloughs than say the overweight biddies in the Dept of Education working on the latest Federal Self-Esteem Project for Left Handed Minorities.

Crying shame, but that's the way it is.

[Chainmail]

"I come from a military family that has shed gallons of blood for this country"

Ah yes, but not you personally, of course. So what exactly, besides assumedly paying taxes and buying Chinese garbage at Wal-Mart to fatten up their offensive capabilities, have you done for the defense of our country? Typing away on your keyboard and throwing around offensive statements at home doesn't count.

What exactly makes you any different from any antimilitary draft-dodging Leftist?

[SkyPilot]

I am employed as a GS-11 US Air Force Civilian. We are FORCED to to take 1 day per week UNPAID(amounts to 16 Hours per a 2 week pay period). We CANNOT take Leave to alleviate the 1 day a week Leave without pay.

I am so sorry to hear this. May God protect you and your family. Thank you for your service. It is immoral that our politicos (in BOTH parties) seem to care more about rewarding the undeserving than people such as yourself.

You can take "comfort" in the fact that Food Stamps and every other giveaway program is "exempt" from this sequestration fiasco.

It is also very distressing to see some of the other responses on this thread.

I remember when this used to be a pro-military, Conservative website.

[Mashood]

“We arae falloing right in to the divide, conquer, and distract strategy right out of the Alinsky Playbook.”

They should shut those agencies down and spend the money on teaching people to spell.

[palmer]

I remember when this used to be a pro-military, Conservative website.

The reason I joined was because this site was willing to take on Clinton's war against Serbia. Other faux conservatives were arguing that all war is good at that point.

The main problem with sequestration is that it was created to pressure all the politicians assuming they were partriotic and recognize the essential flaw in U.S. strategy, namely, building up China's military by the wash of money from our consumption to their industrial base to their military to our deficit spending. We in the Stupid party stupidly thought that Obama would get pressure from the media to not gut the military.

But the fact is that the spending is weakening us in several ways. We have stupid stuff like this: http://www.macb.com/2013/01/07/macb-named-to-11-billion-dhs-tabss-idiq-contract/ which I googled at random (not to pick on anyone in particular).

All this contract will do is shuffle a lot of money to China and in return we will get computers each containing a half dozen or more coprocessors. Each coprocessor has 4Gbit of flash or regular ROM. We have no idea what they do except the nominal functionality. We screw ourselves at the rate of a billion+ dollars in new contracts every week. It's no sustainable and insane from a defensive standpoint.

[Timber Rattler]

Bub, you have no idea about the things which I have done for my country, not to mention my family. So just walk away and STFU.

[Cyber Liberty]

Rule 1 when cutting governmental spending: Always make the first cut hurt the greatest.

[Chainmail]

"Bub, you have no idea about the things which I have done for my country, not to mention my family. So just walk away and STFU."

Sure. Much better than actually telling us what you (not the rest of your family) personally have done. We get lots of big talkers on our FreeRepublic and when you call them on it, they respond like high school kids with the "STFU". Dates, places, times you served our country at risk of your llfe and I'll be impressed, maybe even a little in awe. But until then, you sound like a keyboard commando.

BTW, my Brother and I both served in combat in Vietnam, my Father and both Uncles in WW II, both grandfathers in WWI, family in Spanish-American War, Civil War (both sides) Revolutionary War.

[Chainmail]

I'm proud of your service Chief and continue to be proud of the work you're doing now. You are not a drain on Freepers - though there certainly appears to be more of a surplus of "non-servers" out there who feel empowered to complain about us anyway. Hope you and your family safely weather the Obama-driven fiscal heavy rolls we are about to undergo. "Fair winds and following seas" to you and yours.

Timber rattlers are bad-tempered and dangerous reptiles whose only use in life is to strike out blindly at everything near them and to be a protein source for Red-Tailed Hawks and the occasional Eagle.

[huldah1776]

workED as in past tense. She retired in 1995. WorkED on the carriers as a draftsman for 15 years.

The philly ship yard still has some Navy presence and ships in drydock, but is now privately owned.

[huldah1776]

By the way, they all believed the Philadelphia experiment to be true.

[RobbyS]

Well, anecdotally, the assertion stands up. In every department there are redundant employees. Many more just take all their sick days during the year.