[jimbo123]

Still expecting Boner and McConnell to fold on this. One week to go...

[COBOL2Java]

Wow. I did a Google image search on "fold like a cheap suit" and this image was one of the first to pop up:

[timlilje]

I’ve worked in the private sector and in the government sector. During the last five years the private sector has endured what is equal or worse than the sequester and the government side has not. Time to “spread the wealth around” give everybody a “fair shot” a “fair chance” at success.

[devolve]

GO AHEAD MAKE MY BRUNCH

[Lancey Howard]

This would be the first time that furloughs across the federal government would occur with no chance that lost pay would be recovered.

This is why I always laugh when there's a "government shutdown" and government employees are furloughed - - in the end, the government employees always get their "back pay". I cannot believe that the same thing won't happen again this time if indeed there are furloughs.

[stars & stripes forever]

They say their best option is to soften the pain of unpaid days

Their pain, our gain.

[NTHockey]

We started out the week with 700,000 people getting fired. By Wednesday, it was up to 800,000. Now it’s over a million. At this rate, we’ll have our smaller government by end of winter.

[Our man in washington]

I’m a Federal employee and there’s a good chance I will get furloughed. Losing the money would be tough. Still, if that’s the only way to reduce the deficit, so be it. I’m also a father and I don’t want to see this country turn into Greece. I’d rather they targeted the cuts at mostly worthless expenditures like the Department of Education and Housing and Urban Development, but an across-the-board cut is better than nothing.

One factor that hasn’t been mentioned in this discussion is demographic: the peak year of the baby boom was 1957 and the years surrounding that were high-birth years as well. Thus, you have a lot of Federal employees in that 55 to 57 year age range who would probably accept a buyout. Buy them out, don’t fill the positions, and you can save a lot of money right there.

[Drango]

"furloughs"

What's with this furlough talk? Lay them off. Downsize. What don't the unions and politicians understand?

[McGavin999]

If our side had any brains at all they would be out there telling everyone who will listen that any manager of any federal department can’t figure out how to cut the waste without cutting serives will be replaced with one who can.

[2banana]

Union dues, of course, will not be pro-rated.

[Intolerant in NJ]

They say their best option is to soften the pain of unpaid days, which could slash federal pay by up to 20 percent this fiscal year...this is crap - Transportation Secretary LaHood was on TV yesterday wailing that he was going to lose one billion dollars in the "cutback" (actually a reduction in the increased spending planned for next year) - on a seventy billion dollar budget - that's less than two percent - if the entire budget went into employee salaries, that would work out to one day off for each employee every three months, and if it didn't then cutbacks should be made in none-employee areas - virtually every working family in the country suffered a two percent cut in take home pay last January 1st - where's the government concern for them?......