After Sequestration, A Shocking Proportion Of Government Spending Will Be On Entitlements
Posted on 02/21/2013 3:31:23 PM PST by SkyPilot
The Defense Department on Wednesday officially notified Congress that it plans to begin furloughing its 800,000 civilian employees across the country if automatic spending cuts begin March 1, estimating the states would lose a total of $4.86 billion in workers’ wages this year.
According to Pentagon estimates, among the hardest-hit states would be Virginia, which would have about 88,000 affected workers and salary losses of $660.9 million; California, with 62,600 workers and $419.7 million in lost wages; and Maryland, with 45,700 workers and $359.3 million in lost earnings.
“This is not a Beltway phenomenon,” Jessica L. Wright, the acting undersecretary of defense for personnel and readiness, told reporters at the Pentagon. “More than 80 percent of our civilians work outside of the D.C. metro area. They live and work in every state of the union.”
Under the furlough plan, civilian workers would be forced to take one day of unpaid leave each week for 22 weeks from late April through September, costing them about 20 percent of their pay during that time, Pentagon officials said.
In a written message, Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta told civilian workers that they “will be provided at least 30 days’ notice prior to executing a furlough and your benefits will be protected to the maximum extent possible.”
He added that the Pentagon “also will work to ensure that furloughs are executed in a consistent and appropriate manner.”
Mr. Panetta noted that the department has been funded by a continuing resolution that has limited spending to 2012 levels and said the effects of sequestration may be felt more intensely because of it.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtontimes.com ...
The country has to do some belt-tightening. And by “the country” I mean FedGov spending.
I’ll file this under “Good News”...
Why are there over 800,000 DoD civilians?
Civilian employees? Wouldn’t it be BETTER news if it were ‘government employees’? Oh no, 0bama would never hurt his army.
Great way to do it, exempt entitlements (including Medicaid, Social Security, Food Stamps, TANF, Section 8 housing) but cause tremendous harm to a Constitutional enterprise - the military.
If Congress Can't Compromise, Then America Will Have A 'Hollow Army'
Perhaps the Republican party deserves the internal split that it is about to endure. Good thing it is embracing amnesty for illegals. Now, there's something we can afford. As it alienates the military permanently, it will need new constituencies. Somehow though, I think the illegals will still vote for Democrats.
A furlough of one day per week is impending doom? There are plenty of people who would love to have 4 days per week of guaranteed work-I’m one of them. Someone please give these people some cheese to go with that whine...
This is a great chart, added to my library. Everything above Transportation can be lumped into a single category: Democrat Election Scheme. Admitedly, some Republicans play as well, but entitlement spending is all about income redistribution and giving their voter base free stuff with the only stipulation that you vote for them on election day, and, oh by the way, you give up your freedom and liberty in exchange.
Funny how the liberals at the NY Times and Wash Post are crying like stuck pigs over these tiny cuts.
Those papers have laid off or bought out nearly 50% of their employees since Obama took office. Yet they’re squealing over 3% or so “cuts”?
Why didn’t they squeal about their own 50% budget cuts?
Funny how the liberals at the NY Times and Wash Post are crying like stuck pigs over these tiny cuts.
Those papers have laid off or bought out nearly 50% of their employees since Obama took office. Yet they’re squealing over 3% or so “cuts”?
Why didn’t they squeal about their own 50% budget cuts?
This is shi!. Even if they were furloughed when back on the job they will get every penny of back pay. How does that sound to those suckers that believe the communists bull shi!.
If you are budgeted 100 pizzas you would now only be able to purchase 97.6 that is no massive cut and is not austere. Now if you cut all the pizzas that would be a cut. You would maybe be better served to make your own pizza as well.
...and this is bad news how? :)
You must be listening to Rush too much.
The cuts when compared as a percentage to the entire budget may look small, but 2/3rd of the budget (entitlements) are EXEMPT from sequestration. Of the remaining 1/3rd, Defense takes the biggest hit. On top of that, the total DoD bill for just this year is now projected to be over 13%, and since they can only touch a portion of the budget (military pay for instance is exempt), and they are halfway through the fiscal year, the cuts to the military are huge.
If you had 12 employees, and said you had to make cuts, but you were going to "exempt" 8 of them, and of the 4 remaining only 1 had to take the majority of the paycut, then the one employee takes it the most.
Same principle here, however, the "takers" of society are doing just fine, thank you. Obama and the Democrats fooled the Republicans into signing off on the sequester, and now the military will suffer great harm.
The GOP spin on this is all over the map. Last May, Paul Ryan said these cuts to the military had to be reversed.
Now he is cheerleading them.
Even Byron York is saying Boehner and the Republicans have lost their minds.
The GOP’s astonishingly bad message on sequester cuts
"In a Wall Street Journal op-ed Wednesday, House Speaker John Boehner describes the upcoming sequester as a policy “that threatens U.S. national security, thousands of jobs and more.” Which leads to the question: Why would Republicans support a measure that threatens national security and thousands of jobs? Boehner and the GOP are determined to allow the $1.2 trillion sequester go into effect unless President Obama and Democrats agree to replacement cuts, of an equal amount, that target entitlement spending. If that doesn’t happen — and it seems entirely unlikely — the sequester goes into effect, with the GOP’s blessing. In addition, Boehner calls the cuts “deep,” when most conservatives emphasize that for the next year they amount to about $85 billion out of a $3,600 billion budget. Which leads to another question: Why would Boehner adopt the Democratic description of the cuts as “deep” when they would touch such a relatively small part of federal spending? The effect of Boehner’s argument is to make Obama seem reasonable in comparison.
Back to the Articles of Confederation!
No potus; no congress; no black-robed idiots; no alphabet-soup oppressive departments/agencies !!!!!
Howzat for belt-tightening !
;)
no kidding
Semper Watching!
*****
best way for this country to recover is to send the DC politicians home and tell them to stay there.
One way the military has been able to reduce their numbers has been to turn over a lot of non-combat jobs to civilians, particularly what we in the Navy call "shore duty" billets. For example, go to a typical Navy galley on base. A decade ago it would be staffed by Navy enlisted "Culinary Specialists" cooking up the food. Now it's a bunch of Filipinos manning the grills. Base weapons stations used to be great shore duty for Ordnancemen and Gunner's Mates. Now they're all staffed by retired AO and GM Chiefs. Training squadrons now employ civilian aircraft maintainers (typically retired Navy) rather than enlisted. Base personnel offices are all staffed by civilians as well as the Navy trimmed down their ranks and removed enlisted Yeomans and other admin rates from these jobs. Facilities are maintained and repaired by civilian contractors rather than Seabees. The list goes on and on. Heck, even the gates are manned by civilian security guards rather than Masters at Arms (Navy military police).
I'm sure the other branches are doing the same. The military figured they'd save money on benefits by bringing aboard civilians. I wouldn't be surprised if at the base I work at, civilians outnumber active duty sailors. And now they have to furlough them all.
They’re doing a pretty good job of understanding that low-information voters don’t know what “furlough” means.
Good. Furlough enough government “workers” and maybe they will stop supporting the type of pin-headed moron politicians that they do.
Well, you didn’t say that Byron York was against the “sequester”!
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