Pentagon: 800,000 Employees Will Be Furloughed

JT

Heard this on KCRW (why do I torture myself?) last night. Seems to me there are too many employees if a minor decrease in the spending increase will devastate 800k people…

Jimi

It’s true. But it needs to happen.

If they were really good they’d let the civilians go who were hired after 9/11. Of all the new DOD employees that got hired after 9/11 something like 77% were civilians. I’m sure that would even be a greater cut than the cut that’s going on now.

That would be more sensible.

But politics is politics. No one wants to step on another Joint Chiefs of Staff toes at the end of the day.

Anonymous

And they’ll all be new hires. You know, the spunky bright eyed ones that actually want to do something productive. Versus the lifers who only live for the next coffee break.
On reflection, maybe the productive ones are the MOST dangerous.

Robert

“But the U.S. Travel Association is warning that while much of the attention is on government workers and government contracts, fliers also will bear the brunt.

“Travel has the very real potential of becoming the face of the March 1 sequester cuts,” Roger Dow, president and CEO of the U.S. Travel Association, said in a statement.

“These across-the-board cuts may punish travelers with flight delays, long security lines at Transportation Security Agency checkpoints and multi-hour waits to clear Customs and Border Protection.”

Dow warned of not only the inconvenience to travelers, but the economic impact to the industry.

“Travel has led the nation’s economic recovery — generating more than 50 percent of all jobs created since the beginning of the recession. The indiscriminate sequester cuts threaten to derail the travel-led recovery,” he said. ”

‘the travel-led recovery’ ‘generating more than 50 percent of all jobs created since the beginning of the recession’

wow great news.

What’s your view on the gold and silver price ‘crashing’

Robert

And of course less TSA . Threat or promise ? We will miss them like a toothache.

Anonymous

I was in the Navy from 2002 to 2006. During that time a great many jobs that were normally handled by military personnel were increasingly being contracted out (base security, food service, maintenance, logistics, services, lessons/instruction, etc). Not to mention a lot of pension deals. There’s a lot of money in these contracts, but they aren’t efficient, I assure you.

I knew that the dramatic increase that I saw during my time (which coincided with a “booming” bubble economy) was entirely unsustainable (at the time I didn’t quite know why). There’s no doubt that this government-private contracting process is economically and morally decrepit, but I think what we are seeing here is one of the last holdouts for public funding (defense) finally realizing just how unsustainable this move was on economic terms.

It’s not much different than a bubble, only this one is funded by both money spouts, and it is one that is generally unaccountable. The funny part is that this “cut” represents only 10% of what we know that they spend (they like their intergovernmental accounting tricks), but it is clear to reason who would get the boot.

Just a drop in the bucket, I say.

kirk

if they are let go and the entity can still function, why were they there in the first place?
were these some of the ‘non essential’ employees? how many ‘non essential ‘ employees do you, the reader, have?

Don Wills

800,000 furloughed. A threat or a promise?

Neither. It’s a lie.

http://twitter.com/MiVapemans Vapeman

these people will be laid off with Full Benefits, and PAY, until their Unemployment Ins expires, then they will be put back to work. GUESS WHO PAYS FOR IT, Now or Later?

YOU DO FOOL.

Rob Nabakowski

What? Not fired? Boo!

Guest reader

I second that. It’s true as far sequestration goes. Being employed by the DoD myself, management has already been making out weekly schedules for everyone to work four day weeks till end of FY. It would of been 2 days a month but since no resolution has been agreed upon, now DoD has to make the same cuts in half the time. Guess who gets less groceries for the family now?

I agree its way overbloated but cuts have been here a lot, almost all construction projects gone, overtime vanished, office supply budgets cut down 90%, and a hiring freeze for over a year. There has been great many efforts.

Lastly, to one posters point. No, there will be no back pay or benefits for this one. Just a 20% cut across the board. That means pay, leave accumulation, retirement contributions, the whole kitten cabutal! But, I’m not surprised, this is a long time coming.

Michael Mills

If they don’t kick this can down the road because of scare mongering…