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In general terms, politicians and the press may be referring to what has been happening in Washington, D.C., over the past few days as a government “shutdown” or a “partial government shutdown,” but the actual accounting sheets of the U.S. Treasury show that massive amounts of taxed and borrowed money were flowing in and out of the government during the first two days of fiscal 2014. … To put things in perspective, in the first two days of fiscal 2013 (Oct. 1-Oct. 2, 2012), when there was not a “shutdown,” the federal government spent $124.409 billion, collected $29.057 billion in...

WASHINGTON — Shortly before the federal government shut down at 12:01 a.m. Tuesday, a small group of top White House officials huddled in the West Wing for what turned out to be a discussion of critical importance: how to run the place. They listened as soon-to-be-furloughed junior staff members showed them how to send a news release, issue a proclamation and distribute daily reports of President Obama’s activities. One crucial piece of information was how to clear someone through the security gates for Oval Office appointments. “I didn’t know how to do that before Monday night,” said Josh Earnest, the...

President Barack Obama laid the blame for the U.S. government's partial shutdown at the feet of House of Representatives Speaker John Boehner on Thursday...With 800,000 federal government employees forced into taking leave, some agencies have almost entirely shuttered, including NASA, the Commerce Department and the Environmental Protection Agency.

Nearly 3,000 aviation safety inspectors are being furloughed by the Federal Aviation Administration as part of the government shutdown, the union representing the inspectors said Monday. The inspectors check to make sure airlines are maintaining their planes safely, conduct inspections at airports of planes and pilots, and visit domestic and foreign repair stations where airlines send planes for major overhauls, among other safety jobs, said Kori Blalock Keller, a spokeswoman for the union, Professional Aviation Safety Specialists. …

Given the prestige of the White House within the federal hierarchy, one might assume that under a scenario in which only essential federal employees would remain on the job during a government shutdown, everyone working directly for the president would continue to report for work. But a shutdown would transform the workings of the president’s inner sanctum, idling three-quarters of its workforce. In a letter to the Office of Management and Budget Director Sylvia Mathews Burwell, Katy Kale, assistant to the president for management and administration, explained how “approximately 436 employees will be designated as excepted or exempt to perform...

A great hue and cry occurred in March when agencies suddenly realized the long- dreaded sequester was actually going to happen. As agency heads struggled to find ways to offset billions of dollars in unexpected, automatic budget cuts, the threat of furloughs — temporary unpaid leave — became a reality for many federal workers. The graph below compares the number of furlough days originally prescribed by agencies to the number actually taken by employees. While some agencies anticipated many furlough days, the actual number turned out to be much smaller. Other agencies were able to find savings elsewhere and avoid...

FORT HUACHUCA — Department of Defense civil service employees received good news Tuesday when they were informed nearly half of the furlough days they expected to have to take before the end of September were cut. Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel said instead of 11 days taken without pay it would be reduced to six, meaning civil service employees working for the military will not have to take five days off sans salary. So, instead of the employees facing a 20 percent loss of pay from July 9 to Sept. 30, the cut will be slightly more than 10 percent....

Another story has emerged out of the Department of Defense that the economic consequences from sequestration will be less dire than what was predicted. DoD initially projected that there would be 22 furlough days for government employees. That's now joined the long list of predictions of doom that haven't come true: Officials said no final decisions have been made, but they believe civilian workers will be forced to take six to eight unpaid days off rather than the 11 days that had been scheduled. The move comes as workers begin their fourth week of furloughs — a decision that riled...

Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel warned on Monday that U.S. troops are “close to the breaking point,” after many deployments — and Congress risks worsening the situation if it doesn’t help the Pentagon with its budget. “Our people are strong and resilient after 12 years of war, but they are under stress — and so are the institutions that support them,” Hagel told the Veterans of Foreign Wars at the group’s annual convention in Louisville, Ky. “Last week at Fort Bragg’s Soldier and Family Assistance Center, I met a first sergeant who told me that in Afghanistan, he froze up and...

JOINT BASE CHARLESTON, S.C. — The audience gasped in surprise and gave a few low whistles as Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel delivered the news that furloughs, which have forced a 20 percent pay cut on most of the military’s civilian workforce, probably will continue next year, and it might get worse. “Those are the facts of life,” Hagel told about 300 Defense Department employees, most of them middle-aged civilians, last week at an Air Force reception hall on a military base in Charleston. Future layoffs also are possible for the department’s civilian workforce of more than 800,000 employees, Hagel...

<p>President Obama is calling on federal agencies to use volunteers to accomplish their tasks as part of a larger effort to boost community service throughout the country.</p> <p>The White House issued an executive order Friday -- Expanding National Service through Partnerships to Advance Government Priorities -- to establish a task force charged with improving national service and volunteering. The initiative seeks to align the American people’s commitment to service with the missions of federal agencies.</p>

The Obama Administration is misleading Congress and the American people when it asserts that it plans to maintain a strong national defense. On February 13, 2012, President Barack Obama unveiled his fiscal year (FY) 2013 defense budget request.[1] The request comes on the heels of the January 5, 2012, release of a new strategic guidance outlining the nation’s defense policy.[2] The numbers in the budget submission reveal that the nation’s defense is the Administration’s lowest budget priority among the major responsibilities of the federal government. The budget submission also reveals that the Administration has proposed defense funding levels that are...

More than 600 full-time military technicians in the North Dako-ta National Guard will lose a total $1.2 million in pay over the next 11 weeks as they are required to take off one day a week due to national spending cuts. The furloughs, which went into effect Monday, are part of the federal budget sequestration, a series of automatic, across-the-board cuts to government agencies, totaling $1.2 trillion over the next 10 years triggered earlier this year by the inability of Congress to compromise on a federal budget. On Wednesday, New York Congressman Steve Israel, chair of the Democratic Congressional Campaign...

A day without pay, the first of 11 through September, comes next week for more than 650,000 people who hold civilian jobs with the Defense Department. Officials worry that the Pentagon will be hit even harder by layoffs in 2014 if automatic budget cuts continue as planned. Roughly 85 percent of the department’s nearly 900,000 civilians around the world will be furloughed one day each week over the next three months, according to the latest statistics provided by the Pentagon. But while defense officials were able to shift money around to limit the furloughs this year, thousands of civilian, military...

More than 650,000 civilian Defense Department workers will begin taking the first of their 11 unpaid days off next week, but the cut in salary they will see in the three months may pale compared to what officials worry could be larger-scale layoffs next year. Roughly 85 percent of the department’s nearly 900,000 civilians around the world will be furloughed, according to the latest statistics provided by the Pentagon. But while defense officials were able to shift money around to limit the furloughs this year, there are widespread worries that if automatic budget cuts go forward for 2014, thousands of...

<p>American civilian employees of the Defense Department have put up with pay freezes and are going on furloughs starting next week, but German civilian workers at U.S. military bases in Germany are getting a pay increase.</p> <p>Some U.S. lawmakers say it's unfair that the German union ver.di, which represents about 2 million workers, negotiated a pay increase in June. Sen. Kay Hagan, D-N.C., complained about the raise for German workers in a letter to Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel dated Monday and released by her office Tuesday. She asked him to suspend the raises.</p>

<p>A wounded soldier receives treatment at a rehabilitation center at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda, Md.</p>

Yup, 11 Mondays of furlough starting 8 July until the end of the fiscal. We had a briefing today from our GO (Major General, USA) and FY14 & 15 is not looking good. Reduction in force (RIF) looks probable for both the active and civilian Army force. Myself - being associated , active duty (Navy), contractor or civilian with the military since I was 17, it is very depressing. I am the first to admit that there are areas of personnel waste to trim, but we are at the point of "gutting" our defense. IMOHO This may be worse then...

Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel is exempting around 500 civilian sexual assault prevention personnel from this year’s mandatory furloughs, a senior defense official told POLITICO, in a bid to show the Pentagon is serious about cracking down on sexual assault in the ranks. Hagel is expected to make the announcement on Wednesday. His move comes after a rash of arrests and investigations into service members accused of sexual misconduct and a summit of top military leaders at the White House last week, when President Barack Obama called the problem “dangerous to our national security.” Hagel has ordered most of the...

With furloughs looming, Deputy Defense Secretary Ashton Carter this week paid tribute to the job done by the Pentagon's civilian work force while warning that there soon would be fewer of them doing it. In a series of appearances that fell during Public Service Recognition Week, Carter said the department had yet to come to a decision on how many furlough days to impose to meet the budget-cutting demands of the Congressional sequester process in the current fiscal year. Carter called the across-the-board sequester cuts "stupid," and said they would result in the loss of five to six percent of...