108,000 DoD civilians would lose jobs under sequestration

[her209]

http://www.federaltimes.com/article...ns-would-lose-jobs-under-sequestration-Report

The Defense Department would be forced to cut 108,000 civilian employees from its work force next year if automatic budget cuts take effect Jan. 1, according to a new report.

Defense contractors would see more gradual cuts as existing contracts run out and are not renewed, according to the Aug. 24 report by the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments.

The cuts — formally known as sequestration — are required by last year’s Budget Control Act unless Congress and the Obama administration agree on a path to reducing future budget deficits by $1.2 trillion through 2021.

DoD would need to cut its 791,000-person work force by 13.7 percent in fiscal 2013 to achieve its share of the reductions, which the report estimates at $56.5 billion, or 10.3 percent.

791,000 DoD employees and Paul Ryan wants to keep growing it.

 

[nehalem256]

So its $523,148.15/job. Is this better or worse than the stimulus bill?

 

[shortylickens]

Having served in the Navy for 9 years I can honestly say many of them are fucking useless and dont earn their pay. Trimming the fat would not be a bad thing.

But the way the government does stuff, they'll probably just kill whole departments and make more trouble than anything.

 

[Wreckem]

The average american got more benefits from the stimulus then they will ever get from civilians working in the DoD. The avg citizen gets next to nothing from the way over bloated defense budget. I thought you were all for smaller govt? The DOD is the biggest cluster fuck(mostly the civilian side, but even the military side has its issues) when it comes to govt agencies. The fat should have been cut a long time ago. I'd have no problem with high levels of defense spending(but not near as high as it is) if it was spent appropriately, but it never is. I'd have no problem if members of the military made more money. Its never made any sense to me that civilians make more than non civilians at almost every level in the DoD.

But this only came about because of the republicans. The republicans made the debt ceiling an issue, when its never been an issue before. Not a peep was raised under Bush's 8 years. They were the ones that made the fiscal cliff. They can easily undo it but they only want to cut Democrats spending while increasing their own, so they won't.

 

[shortylickens]

The average american got more benefits from the stimulus then they will ever get from civilians working in the DoD. The avg citizen gets next to nothing from the way over bloated defense budget. I thought you were all for smaller govt? The DOD is the biggest cluster fuck(mostly the civilian side, but even the military side has its issues) when it comes to govt agencies. The fat should have been cut a long time ago. I'd have no problem with high levels of defense spending(but not near as high as it is) if it was spent appropriately, but it never is. I'd have no problem if members of the military made more money. Its never made any sense to me that civilians make more than non civilians at almost every level in the DoD.

But this only came about because of the republicans. The republicans made the debt ceiling an issue, when its never been an issue before. Not a peep was raised under Bush's 8 years. They were the ones that made the fiscal cliff. They can easily undo it but they only want to cut Democrats spending while increasing their own, so they won't.

Umm, Bush cut active duty personnel to save money in 2006. He axed about 50 thousand sailors of 400 thousand in just a few months.

 

[Wreckem]

Umm, Bush cut active duty personnel to save money in 2006. He axed about 50 thousand sailors of 400 thousand in just a few months.

And? Defense spending skyrocketed every year under Bush...

His decisions are also why VA spending is going to skyrocket for the next two decades or more.

DoD/VA combined budgets are on track to hit over a $1trillion if cuts aren't made. The fact of the matter is Republicans don't want to cut DoD, they actually have gone on record saying they want to increase it. There is no reason we should be spending as much as we do on defense spending. Republicans should stop playing in the middle east like our soilders are toys.

 

[xaeniac]

Having served in the Navy for 9 years I can honestly say many of them are fucking useless and dont earn their pay. Trimming the fat would not be a bad thing.

But the way the government does stuff, they'll probably just kill whole departments and make more trouble than anything.

I'm sure you could say the same about some of the sailors as well.

 

[shortylickens]

I'm sure you could say the same about some of the sailors as well.

Yup. Many are useless. But when Bush cut the budget a lot of good men were cut out for bogus reasons and a lot of dirt bags got to stay.

 

[nehalem256]

And? Defense spending skyrocketed every year under Bush...

His decisions are also why VA spending is going to skyrocket for the next two decades or more.

DoD/VA combined budgets are on track to hit over a $1trillion if cuts aren't made. The fact of the matter is Republicans don't want to cut DoD, they actually have gone on record saying they want to increase it. There is no reason we should be spending as much as we do on defense spending. Republicans should stop playing in the middle east like our soilders are toys.

Republicans clearly have some math problems.

 

[Incorruptible]

This is good news,we need much less bureaucrats but they must also get rid of the ones in other departments

 

[Lemon law]

The first question to ask is always why we call it the department of defense, when it really the department of Offensive rude crude socially unacceptable public policy. That goes over like a lead balloon wherever applied.

And when it comes time to cut the bloat in the military budget, Doctor dimorat and Dr. republirat both agree on the proper precription, in cutting the lean and adding to the un needed fat. That way, the longer an incompetently run military quagmire runs, the more money military contractors make.

 

[jackschmittusa]

Maybe Romney will run the DoD like a business. Put out a set of specs for a weapon and the price they're willing to pay. Tell them if they build it, they have a buyer. If your product is sub par and out of spec, it's your loss.

 

[nextJin]

I'm about as knee deep in this as anyone here and the sheer amount of spending and waste is absolutely asinine. There is no reason on this earth that we couldn't cut spending in half or even more and still without question be the most advanced military might in the world.

This coming from someone in the military and a spouse who is a DHS employee.

All of these bullshit conservatives that say we have to increase spending in defense or go to war with Iran are just batshit crazy religious nutjobs.

 

[shortylickens]

Maybe Romney will run the DoD like a business. Put out a set of specs for a weapon and the price they're willing to pay. Tell them if they build it, they have a buyer. If your product is sub par and out of spec, it's your loss.

Thats how it already works. Everything we got it built by the lowest bidder. The problem is only the rich boys club is allowed to bid. Thats why jets cost 50 million and break every other time they go up.

 

[Infohawk]

Defense cuts should happen regardless of the current budget issues.

 

[nehalem256]

Maybe Romney will run the DoD like a business. Put out a set of specs for a weapon and the price they're willing to pay. Tell them if they build it, they have a buyer. If your product is sub par and out of spec, it's your loss.

Wouldn't that mean he should be in favor of the layoffs?

 

[prism]

I'm all for this, unless this pushes back development on laser rifles. You can't put a price on laser rifles.

 

[Anarchist420]

The Defense budget can very comfortably be decreased to not more than $150Bn (in FY2011 USD) for FY2014 and the DHS can be abolished along with several other cabinets while they can raise the VA budget (by about $90Bn in FY2011 USD for FY2014 from FY2013) so all the veterans don't commit suicide.

Ideally, they could just abolish the Federal Govt overnight, but that's not going to happen unfortunately.

 

[jackschmittusa]

shortylickens

Not how it works now.

Everybody now bids low because they know that cost overruns will be paid for.

New way would be: here's the specs, here's what we're willing to pay for X number of units. Anybody and everybody is invited to build a prototype on your own nickle and submit it for testing. Same firm price offered to all.

 

[Jhhnn]

Repubs cornered themselves when they engaged in the debt ceiling grandstand maneuver, and now it's coming back around to bite them in the ass.

I'm all in favor of downsizing the DoD, but we have to do it in such a way as to transition workers into other jobs- slowly.

Until the last few years, spending on the military was basically equal to the deficits... just a little food for thought.

 

[Thump553]

Interesting how the GOP is now arguing that cutting government spending will hurt employment. Wait a minute, aren't they arguing the exact opposite at the same time-as THE central point of their economic recovery plan?

Sequestration was a bad idea altogether (the civilian side as well as the DoD-the repubs ignore the civilian side damage) but it was a creation of the GOP gridlock in Congress as part of the phony debt crisis. Time to clean house in Congress and give the wackadoodles their walking papers. Time to get some adults in Congress on the GOP side.

 

[Jhhnn]

Interesting how the GOP is now arguing that cutting government spending will hurt employment. Wait a minute, aren't they arguing the exact opposite at the same time-as THE central point of their economic recovery plan?

Sequestration was a bad idea altogether (the civilian side as well as the DoD-the repubs ignore the civilian side damage) but it was a creation of the GOP gridlock in Congress as part of the phony debt crisis. Time to clean house in Congress and give the wackadoodles their walking papers. Time to get some adults in Congress on the GOP side.

They don't really give a damn about domestic employment. What they do care about is the US military protecting the assets of offshoring US capitalists, and the enormous profitability of supplying the military.

 

[conehead433]

The fastest way to increase jobs that aren't costing the taxpayers money is to fire government workers. They have made too much money to be able to afford to collect unemployment benefits so they'll go out and get a job.

 

[Rainsford]

I'm about as knee deep in this as anyone here and the sheer amount of spending and waste is absolutely asinine. There is no reason on this earth that we couldn't cut spending in half or even more and still without question be the most advanced military might in the world.

This coming from someone in the military and a spouse who is a DHS employee.

All of these bullshit conservatives that say we have to increase spending in defense or go to war with Iran are just batshit crazy religious nutjobs.

Except nothing about this process suggests waste will go down or spending will be more efficient. People seem to think undirected spending cuts mean wasteful spending will be cut when it's more likely easy to cut spending will be cut. This means cuts in short term projects while the giant projects everyone things of when they think of wasteful spending will stick around because of the amount of sunk investment. Not to mention that defense contractors (which represent a lot of the "waste") apparently get a much softer landing than government employees.

 

[Rainsford]

The fastest way to increase jobs that aren't costing the taxpayers money is to fire government workers. They have made too much money to be able to afford to collect unemployment benefits so they'll go out and get a job.

Well most of them have jobs now...and we shouldn't let anti-government BS prevent us from considering that many government jobs are useful and the employees provide value to the country as a whole.

Also, the big problem here is that this process doesn't increase jobs at all. It results in a bunch of new out of work people with no extra resources going to the private sector to make up for anything, so the problem effectively gets worse. That's why cutting government spending in a recession has been, up until recently, considered a bad way to fix the economy.