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Once again, the Pentagon wants to scrap a weapon – in this case, the Abrams tank – that Congress has an interest in preserving. But with 'sequester' cuts, the tradeoff will be civilian furloughs. Army Chief of Staff Ray Odierno testifies on Capitol Hill on April 23. The Army’s hulking Abrams tank, built to dominate the enemy in combat, is proving to be equally hard to beat in a budget battle, because of a bipartisan push to spend an extra $436 million on tanks, which the Pentagon does not want. Even as the Pentagon struggles to make some tough, congressionally...

WASHINGTON – Legislation to end furloughs of air traffic controllers and delays for millions of travelers is headed to a House vote after a dark-of-night vote in the Senate that took place after most lawmakers had left the Capitol for a weeklong vacation. The bill passed late Thursday without even a roll call vote, and House officials indicated it likely would be brought up for quick approval there. Under the legislation, the Federal Aviation Administration would gain authority to transfer up to $253 million from accounts that are flush into other programs, to "prevent reduced operations and staffing" through the...

<p>WASHINGTON, April 25 (Reuters) - The U.S. Senate late on Thursday approved legislation to provide enough funding for federal air traffic controllers through Sept. 30 to end furloughs that have brought widespread airline delays. Several Senate aides said an agreement had been reached on a bill giving the Department of Transportation new flexibility to use unspent funds to cover the costs of air traffic controllers and other essential employees at the Federal Aviation Administration.</p>

Washington, DC – House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure Chairman Bill Shuster (R-PA) issued the following statement today after Department of Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood and Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) Administrator Michael Huerta announced that a five percent budget reduction due to sequestration would result in the furloughing of thousands of air traffic controllers and potentially disrupt the travel plans of the flying public: “The FAA’s management of sequestration is quickly going from bad to worse. Given that the FAA’s budget increased more than 100 percent over the last 15 years, finding five percent in savings shouldn’t need to significantly...

The New York Times reports: President Obama plans to return 5 percent of his salary to the Treasury in solidarity with federal workers who are going to be furloughed as part of the budget cutting process known as sequester, an administration official said Wednesday. The voluntary move would be retroactive to March 1 and apply through the rest of the calendar year, the official said. The White House came up with the 5 percent figure to approximate the level of automatic spending cuts to non-defense federal agencies that took effect that day. Politico adds: "The salary for the president, as...

<p>WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama will press Congress to pass new tax incentives and other flexibility measures aimed at attracting more private sector investment in infrastructure projects around the country, a senior administration official said.</p> <p>The president will flesh out the details of his proposals during a speech Friday at a Miami port that is undergoing $2 billion in upgrades, funded by public and private money. In his quick trip to South Florida, Obama will try to show the public that the economy remains his top priority in the midst of high-profile campaigns on immigration reform and gun control.</p>

Every time a government has a budget shortfall, the remedy is always to furlough or even to lay off workers. But all those workers could be retained and the job get done by simply reducing their pay-rates commensurately. I understand that furloughing and laying off generates publicity and exerts pressure. But why does no one ever offer the pay-cut alternative? Why not, for example, an across-the-board 10% pay-cut? I understand that many governments employees are stupidly permitted to belong to unions that can strike over pay issues, Wisconsin and Indiana notwithstanding, and that public-sector unions have contracts. Isn't it time...

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...

Today, White House tours remain closed thanks to a petulant President who insists that somebody, anybody, feel some pain over the sequester cuts that trimmed a modest 2 cents on the dollar from the $3.6 trillion federal budget. It’s an age-old lesson in what happens when one stands up to politician spoiled by a deferential media and effusive supporters and colleagues. His bluster and threats can only go so far before they run into reality. As we begin the second week of sequestration with our nation, somehow, still functioning, it is important to pause for a moment to consider the...

U.S. lawmakers won’t have their $174,000 salaries affected by across-the-board government spending cuts going into effect this month, but there’s little clarity about how the bank accounts of senators and representatives were spared in the so-called sequester. The spending cuts hit every budget account with a few exceptions that were written into the law that set up the federal budgeting process more than two decades ago, known as the Gramm-Rudman-Hollings Act. Compensation for the president is specifically exempted, but there’s no mention of pay for members of Congress. So how did lawmakers’ pay escape the axe? Turns out that’s a...

WASHINGTON—Congressman Blake Farenthold (R-TX27), Chairman of the House Oversight Subcommittee on the Federal Workforce, introduced the Protecting America’s Civilian Employees (PACE) Act to keep America’s federal employees from facing furloughs due to sequestration cuts. The PACE Act requires the Office of Management and Budget to submit a report to Congress indicating how to most efficiently transfer funds within agencies and departments for fiscal year 2013 to avoid all furloughs or reductions in America’s federal workforce. “Our federal workforce needs to be operating at 100%. They should not be punished because the President, Harry Reid and the Senate Democrats failed to...

The U.S. government on Thursday notified 60,000 federal workers responsible for securing borders and facilitating trade that they will face furloughs due to government-wide spending cuts. Customs and Border Protection said it expects furloughs and other austerity will cause delays at ports of entry, including international arrivals at airports, and reduce the number of border patrol officers on duty at any one time. …

KENNEBUNK, Maine –— Politicians may say the looming federal budget cuts won't hurt very much, but Becky Burritt isn't buying it. The Kennebunk mother whose husband, Justin, is a civilian employee at Portsmouth Naval Shipyard, knows the mandatory furlough days will mean cutting back on everything from eating out to kids' activities. “We're cutting back, not going out — there will be more home-cooked meals,” the mother of two said as her family faces a loss of nearly $400 and all overtime per biweekly pay period. Federal civilian workers at the shipyard and throughout the United States will be forced...

Department of Department Press Briefing on Civilian Furlough Planning Efforts from the Pentagon 02/20/2013 04:35 PM CST ________________________________ Presenter: Under Secretary of Defense and Chief Financial Officer Robert F. Hale and Acting Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness Jessica Lynn Wright February 20, 2013 ________________________________ Department of Department Press Briefing on Civilian Furlough Planning Efforts from the Pentagon BRYAN WHITMAN: Good afternoon, and thank you for joining us today and for your interest in the topic today of sequestration, as well as most of you know by now, in accordance with the law, we have notified Congress today...

The Defense Department on Wednesday officially notified Congress that it plans to begin furloughing its 800,000 civilian employees across the country if automatic spending cuts begin March 1, estimating the states would lose a total of $4.86 billion in workers’ wages this year. According to Pentagon estimates, among the hardest-hit states would be Virginia, which would have about 88,000 affected workers and salary losses of $660.9 million; California, with 62,600 workers and $419.7 million in lost wages; and Maryland, with 45,700 workers and $359.3 million in lost earnings. “This is not a Beltway phenomenon,” Jessica L. Wright, the acting undersecretary...

If the federal government is forced to furlough civilian employees in the event of sequestration, the burden will fall heavily on a population that Congress and the White House have vowed to support: veterans. More than two out of five of the approximately 800,000 Department of Defense employees facing furloughs are veterans, Deputy Defense Secretary Ashton Carter said Wednesday. “Forty-four percent of them are veterans,” Carter told the House Armed Services Committee during a hearing on the potential effect of sequestration on the military. ”Very soon we’re going to have to furlough the great majority of them.” The Pentagon expects...

The two-day-a-month unpaid furloughs of state executive branch workers ordered in 2008 by then-Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger legally applied to employees of California's elected constitutional officers, an appellate court in Sacramento ruled Tuesday. Applying the furlough order to the staffs of constitutional officers "does not violate the California Constitution's system of divided executive authority or impermissibly interfere with (the officers') statutory right to control the staffing and management of their respective offices," a three-justice panel of the 3rd District Court of Appeal declared in a 47-page opinion. Schwarzenegger resorted to furloughs as a cost-saving device in the face of an overwhelming...

Some things to ponder now that Jerry Brown is governor-elect: • On Monday, Local 1000 of Service Employees International Union will start counting ratification ballots for a new contract for 95,000 state workers. The deal, already ratified by the Legislature, is laced with concessions in pay, benefits and pensions that are sweetened with a few protections and deferred raises. Depending on who's talking, it's the best bad deal the union could cut or complete capitulation to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. Some union members held their ballots to see whether Democrat Brown or self-funded GOP candidate and self-professed state jobs chopper Meg...

With a new order extending furloughs for tens of thousands of state workers, Attorney General Jerry Brown has yet to say whether he will tell the roughly 1,800 employees working for him to start taking unpaid days off beginning next week. Brown, the Democratic gubernatorial candidate, and other statewide-elected officials are still mulling over a week-old memo from the Schwarzenegger administration that mandates furloughs for members of their staff who are in unions that have not negotiated a new labor contract.

The California Supreme Court ruled this morning that state workers were legally furloughed and are not entitled to back pay. The ruling affects more than 200,000 state workers forced by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to take unpaid days off since February 2009.