Posted on 02/28/2013 9:54:37 PM PST by Brad from Tennessee
WASHINGTON As a single dad with seven kids living at home, Bill Blevins is used to pinching every penny.
The 48-year-old building engineer at the U.S. Bureau of Engraving and Printing hasnt had a cost-of-living pay raise in more than two years, even as his rent and insurance premiums went up. Now he and other federal workers in Washington and across the country are bracing for possible unpaid furloughs as part of an $85 billion reduction in federal spending. Known as sequestration, the automatic, across-the-board budget cuts are scheduled to kick in unless Congress and the White House can reach a compromise by Friday.
snip______________________________________
I am a registered Republican. However, I blame the Republican Party for this, said Gregory Russell, a 48-year-old federal firefighter at the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Md. Russell calculates hed lose about $1,200 a month about 20 percent of his pay if he gets furloughed. . .
(Excerpt) Read more at mcclatchydc.com ...
My wife was in line for the bus at Ft. Fumble (the Pentagon) and the people in civies were approached and asked about how they will deal with the sequester.. It was someone with a White House jacket on with the credentials hanging on a lanyard. Since they have to announce themselves if they’re with the media she and her busmates assumed it was someone from the regime trolling for victims.
Oh, and the sun has come up so Obama and the democrats must be pissed.
So if we cave on this then it is over. This is war and 0'bastard is corrupt to the core. Deal with it.
you do realize that is is only a 2% cut of all spending and it’s the president and his regime who decided where the cuts would come from. Carville even said that they cut where it would hurt the most people so they could get the most mileage from it. The democrats are punishing your friend, not freepers.
We feel bad for these people but the blame lies squarely on the shoulders of the prezzy. The folks here are just tired of being beat-up every few days while there is a class of people in our country that seem to get away unscathed. The federal government has to be cut and the prezzy decided to take it out on the only area he wants to cut, defense and border security.
We will be praying for those that are less fortunate.
Precisely. We do our side no good when we make stuff up. Stick to facts:they’re damning enough.
tC
Isn’t it interesting that you can find this ‘republican’ is a phony put-up job with a little internet sleuthing, but the MSM can’t be bothered to check. I suppose because it serves their interest; which is being the propaganda arm for leftists.
Nice description. Did she vote? Do you happen to know who she voted for?
If it was Obama, I have no sympathy. If not, I am very sorry for her.
He's fakin' it for the attention and the media whores can't get enough. After all, there is nothing sweeter for a lib than blaming their messes on a Republican!
to quote officer john mclane ( of the die hard series )....
“Welcome to the party pal”..
uh, I guess that is Marylands version of a “Republican”?
Probably voted for lilMarty O’Malley too
Maybe the furlough will reduce his policial contributions to rat politicians so he can continue to feed his kids hot dogs
Given that most Federal workers are involved in anti tenth amendment activities, I can’t feel too sorry for them.
And to mask this effect over time FedGov has been borrowing and creating massive amounts of $$$ that simply make the long-term problem even worse. Simple logic dictates that the over-spending has to stop. It needs to be pared back each and every year for the foreseeable future. The "pain" and dislocation has to happen, if we can't adjust to a small decrease in the amount of growth, we're done. (What this implies is that we can't even cut the rate of GROWTH to zero, in which FedGov would spend the same amount in a FY that it did in the prior FY. Think about that, you've got to first be able to get to zero growth before you even begin to do any actual "cutting." )
There is no other viable option; but it doesn't look like the country as a whole is anywhere near being able to accept this cold hard fact.
Actually, a lot of them do say that. It's just that those quotes somehow never make it into the news.
If another worker is 100% laid off, Russell and four others don’t have to have a furlough. I have a modest proposal for Mister Russell: You pick which co-worker to lay off so you don’t have to do a furlough. Your partner Bill? How about that guy who rides shotgun for the Rescue truck? Driver for the ladder truck? Maybe you’d like to volunteer for layoff yourself so the others don’t have to furlough.
No, Mr. Russell would rather whine about the evil Rethuglicans. I wonder waht his handle is on DU?
Amen
Just look at what obama has done to us, turning us against each other. We are a house divided.
Turning anger at what he and the democrat party are doing to ruin this country, against an entire federal workforce of decent people who get up and go to work everyday and try to maintain pride in their professional roles. Beth is the norm, not the exception.
We too looking at a 20% pay cut, just gonna suck it up and try to enjoy the extra time off finding free and cheap stuff to do with the kids
ie, saltmarsh mouse studies could be defunded so teachers could keep their jobs
However, part of Congress voted it down because obama said he would veto it - the magic potus refuses to leave fingerprints on any decision about where and what to cut.
The sequester was crafted by zerO’s advisors to be so bad, so heavily weighted against DoD, they assumed the GOP would roll over and never let it go into effect
The other part of Congress voted yesterday's bill down giving Barry more power because they figured instead of forcing the man-child to do his job, he would just abuse it
In 2011 I and everybody else where I worked took a 20% pay cut, all bonuses eliminated, and 2 others had to be laid off. Those that stayed didn’t get to take that one day off. But that was solved the next year for me with a 100% reduction in work days and a 100% cut in pay, i.e. layoff, along with three others from the small firm I was working for.
Now having said that, my daughter works for the DoD, and and is getting a 20% cut in pay and furlough. But she was on a 4 day work week anyway, does she only work 3 days now and then 2 hours on her fourth day?
It is now up to the House to tell the president what must be cut in very specific line item language. It is easy to do, everybody knows where waste and unnecessary spending resides.
Let the House pass the very specific bill and then have the Senate reject it. That is the ir constitutional function. All this Fox News supported transfer talk fails to trealize just who is in control. It is the House.
she should be getting a briefing on how her furlough will be handled
If she is working 4 10-hour days then I imagine her hours will be cut to 7.5 hours a day (30 hour week) to match her reduced pay. At least she is not paying $4 a gallon gas to commute
Good luck to her!
No mention of the step increases, merit raises and/or promotions. The reporter picked her words carefully. If he had received NO raises at all, you can bet she would have said that.
I say “budget” because there is no “budget”
Remember, the Senate has not exercised its role, and has not sent the House a budget for over 3 years.
This is why Boehner keeps saying the Senate needs to do its J-O-B before the House can do its J-O-B instead of making everything up as they go along.
This issue is way beyond a couple of Congressmen trying to make backroom deals at midnight while the adhd narcissist manchild plays golf and abuses Air Force One traveling on a perpetual campaign/vacation lifestyle
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.