Pentagon considers hiring freeze, contract delays

Washington – The Pentagon will begin taking steps to freeze civilian hiring, delay some contract awards and curtail some maintenance to prepare for drastic budget cuts if Congress can't reach an agreement on a final spending plan, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said Thursday.

Of course. And all conveniently delayed just enough to avoid any WARN Act impacts on Obama's re-election. Delaying funding has a very unique impact. The people who aren't getting paid due to the delay will take a hike and find another way to feed their families. When the "delayed" funds re-appear, the contractors no longer have the personnel resources to execute the contracts. The people dumped on the street aren't going to abandon a freshly acquired replacement employment.

I often regret leaving my very fun contractor job at Pt Mugu doing EW work after the 2006 BRAC scare. Turns out they did not get relocated to China Lake, but I ended up where I wanted anyway, working on a NASA project for a couple years until Zero ruined that.

So, F'em, I went Galt so to speak, quit working early to collect SS. They lost my $100k+ salary to tax, and now they scheme to screw even more contractors. With luck, a lot of senior guys will do as I did and say to hell with it. Retire and let the system collapse. Not worth bashing your head against the wall with liberal defense neutering killing your livelihood..

Dunno if that is the best strategy, but I was never a deep political thinker. Continuing to feed the Kenyan's machine just ate at me, so saying F'it was easy.

The US can no longer afford to send troops all over the world nor contain China by herself. This is a fiscal reality, and ignoring it will sink our fleet and forces faster then a PLA weapon. Bankruptcy is a real national security threat. The US needs a decade plan. This term comes from the Three Kingdom Era of China, when the powerful lord Cao Cao of the North took on an alliance of the West and South warlord at Red Cliff. The battle ended with Cao Cao badly defeated. He conclude he cannot conquer the rest of China as long as the coalition of the West and South existed. When asked by one of his ministers on what to do next as his army limped back to the North, he answered “rest ten years”. That is what he did, rest ten years in defense while he rebuild his forces. During that time the coalition between the West and South fell apart over from past territorial disputes.
That is what the US needs to do. China is growing stronger but she must overcome the coalition of Asian powers before she can break free into the Pacific. Japan and India will form a natural alliance to contain China. Both have conflicts with China. China’s aggressive claims to South China Seas will add Philippine and Vietnam to the anti Chinese coalition. The US can rest in Guam and dart in and out of the Western Pacific to knock Chinese moves off balance just like the Persians did to the war between Athens and Sparta. The US needs time to rebuild and restore her finances and society. Too much has been delayed as we fought the Cold War and then played Policeman of the World via neocon leadership created an alliance between China and Russia (something we broke up during the Cold War). Our domestic and defense spending has caught up with us as huge deficits. The US badly needs a “decade plan”.

Your reply seems to focus on over-stretching our troops. Nor argument. The time to pull them out of Europe is way in the past. Elsewhere as well.

I was responding to the liberals cutting off contractors, who do the bulk of the heavy lifting in R&D for the DoD. The guys running the missile defense ranges and DARPA are not uniformed military, but contractors and civilians.

What the Pentagon does in it's circle jerks other than worry about accommodating faggotry in the barracks is beyond my comprehensions.

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