Posted on 03/18/2013 5:06:15 PM PDT by SkyPilot
Defense Department employees can expect furlough notices as soon as Thursday and then will have a seven-day window in which to appeal their place on the furlough rolls, the Pentagon said Monday.
Acting in response to the across-the-board budget restrictions imposed by March 1’s sequestration, the department must send its first notices, telling workers that they could be furloughed, from March 21 to 25; employees will have from March 28 to April 1 to appeal whether they should be furloughed; and the first official furlough notices will go out March 29, according to an announcement.
The first furlough will begin April 25, and then furloughs will extend over 11 pay periods from April 21 to Sept. 21. The Pentagon said those dates were “subject to change,” but they correspond with what top leaders have said before about how quickly they’d need to furlough many of the department’s roughly 800,000 civilian employees.
Uniformed service members are exempt from the furloughs, but defense leaders have warned Congress that they expect even active-duty units to experience some problems from sequestration given the close connections of the military and civilian parts of the department. Africa Command, for example, which is overseeing the U.S. forces assisting the French campaign against extremists in Mali, must furlough about 800 of its approximately 2,000 workers.
Defense officials have said they hope Congress would forestall the need for furloughs by undoing sequestration, but Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin said in a speech on Monday that he thought it would stay in effect at least for the rest of the fiscal year.
"We're not going to be able to avoid" sequestration this fiscal year, Levin said...
(Excerpt) Read more at politico.com ...
FAA sent some out already. Why now shut down IRS?
Fine.
Because if anybody needs to be shut down, its them. Unfortunately I haven't heard anything about the IRS getting cut.
When will they be sending them out to the Dept. Of Homeland “Security”, the EPA, the Dept. of “Education”, the TSA, OSHA, the Dept. of Labor, the EPA, the IRS, the EPA, the Dept. of Health and Human Services, the EPA and the EPA?
But the military (at 18% of the budget) must take 50% of all Sequestration cuts.
TRICARE will not have enough money for active duty and veteran care and will stop some payments to providers.
Tuition assistance for our active duty eliminated. Civilian DoD employees in all areas (maintenance, healthcare, operations, intelligence) furloughed and taking a 20% pay cut.
DoD teachers furloughed.
Family support programs for dependents of deployed members have funding slashed.
Operations and Maintenance accounts for all services reduced by up to 50%.
Meanwhile.....
Fifteen Percent of Americans Use Food Stamps
America is quickly decaying into one giant Welfare hell hole.
“800,000 civilian employees”
Let’s see......roughly 20,000 Soldiers in a Division......what’s that, 40 Divisions? I’ll bet they vote Democrat.
Unfortunately I haven’t heard anything about the IRS getting cut.
Just a pleasant daydream.
Why any furloughs if they are receiving more this year than last?
People who really believe that are listening to Hannity too much.
Read this. Please.
In sequestration, president and Congress undermining military
The Continuing Resolution has frozen spending levels at a rate of nearly 2 years ago. On top of that, the military is reeling from a $487 Billion cut (over ten years) that began in 2011. Then there is Sequestration on top of that, cutting the military by 13% this year. Because military pay is exempt and much of the procurement dollars cannot be touched 1/2 way into the fiscal year, Operations and Maintenance dollars are cut beyond flesh and into the bone.
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"A huge blow to military funding was dealt by the Budget Control Act, the result of the 2011 debt ceiling negotiations. These negotiations cut $1 trillion from discretionary spending over a decade, nearly $500 billion of which came from the military. The military is still addressing this financial loss, with most of the cuts still ahead. The next funding trauma comes from the failure of Congress to approve the 2013 budget. Instead, Congress has pegged funding at 2012 levels through a device known as a “continuing resolution.” This creates circumstances in which the military cannot move funds between accounts without congressional approval, so the money from a program the military decides to eliminate in 2013 cannot be used to fund a new program. The final challenge thrown at the military is the sequester, which requires another $500 billion cut in this decade. Because the military must make so many cuts so quickly, and with little latitude on where to make cuts, training and readiness will be decimated. Those who support sequestration emphasize that the amount being cut is only about 2.4 percent of the federal budget. That is only part of the story. So much of the budget has been protected from cuts that the military must absorb a cut of about 9 percent – and they must do it in six months!
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Entitlements are destroying the nation.
Cuts can be made in a smart way, or a dumb way. They've chosen dumb.
My most recent source report (E ring, ground floor) says there’s not a peep about a new continuing resolution authority. 27 Mar may in fact be The Day.
Because half of the cuts were absorbed by the defense department and not spread across the entire federal budget
Many military budget problems are self inflicted. For example wasting money on “Climate Change” research, “bio -fuels” boondoggling, celebrating Black History Month, etc.
Remember DOD employees are also government employees!
This is a bunch of b.s. If we are going to do this, do it across the board, everything should be cut, not primarily, the one thing the Federal Government is supposed to be doing, defending our country.
bingo
now, what will obama handlers and democrats do next year? more of the same?? Focus spending “cuts” on the DoD - which they HATE - while Homeland Security/TSA ends up with more bullets than the US military?
Sorry for your personaasituation- I think there will be many silent victims like you, especially in this region
helluva thing for our vets, with all the skills they have gained at such great cost, to come home to - part time work at WalMart
It is. I veteran of Afghanistan and Iraq that I know was hired to by the DoD last year. This guy is incredible. He has 3 small children. He has been forced to apply to a job working in a store in a strip mall, hoping to pick up some part time hours on the weekends and during his furlough day off to make ends meet.
The incredible thing is he keeps going - he is finding work. No job is too "demeaning" to him.
We have rewarded the takers, and we punish the noble.
Both Congress and the President share this shame. Sequestration never had a chance of "being stopped." Both sides wanted it. Obama's last minute offensive was for show - he was never willing to cut give away programs in exchange for cuts that eviscerated the military. Congress (especially our Republican masters) are Judas Iscariot. They have abandoned the military.
Congress wants to "hold hearings" as to why Tuition Assistance has been cut. Hold hearings?! THEY are forcing cuts on the military that are resulting in a 30-50% immediate cut to Operations and Maintenance funding, in the middle of a fiscal year! Congress will not even acknowledge their cowardice in this matter.
America will pay an awful price for this. Mark my words. When the next attack comes (and it will), our nation will have a rotted front door.
America is under a curse.
Our President.
Our Speaker of the House.
Our "brilliant" House Budget Chairman.
They have all betrayed our military.
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