This town is finally focused on sequestration (makes sense with only 1 week to go.) But again, the general feeling is that the cuts will go into effect, at least for some time if not the entire fiscal year. It looks like there have been negotiations behind the scene about President Obama’s nominees for Secretary of Defense and National Security Leader. It is now expected that both will be voted on next week (and the White House giving Republicans more information on Bengazi but no more on the legal opinions on the drones.)
Congress will be back in session and TREA: The Enlisted Association National President Rick Delaney will be testifying before a Joint House and Senate VA Committees hearing on Thursday February 28 at 10:00 a.m.
More on Sequestration
It is getting to be crunch time for sequestration and as we are sure you have all heard there are reports that there will be 2 hour security lines at the airports and fewer air traffic controllers in the towers. There may be fewer teachers, and firemen and policemen in your towns and cities. All of this may happen if the across-the-board cuts do go into effect. But they are broad, generalized predictions
A detailed plan/prediction released this week was that as many of 800,000 civilian DoD employees may be furloughed. The DoD plan is to require workers to take 1 unpaid off day per week. That would mean 22 unpaid days if the sequestration ran through the full FY2013 fiscal year. That would, of course, mean a 20% cut in pay. If this happens it would start in April since the law requires that a formal notice be sent to each affected employee at least 30 days before the furloughs occur.
Since many of you or your friends are now DoD civilian employees this could be hugely important to you.
SecDef Leon Panetta said about the plan:”We are doing everything possible to limit the worst effects on DoD personnel — but I regret that our flexibility within the law is extremely limited. The president has used his legal authority to exempt military personnel funding from sequestration, but we have no legal authority to exempt civilian personnel funding from reductions.”
It may also dramatically affect you if you are a defense company employee. And even if you are not in either group, the sequestration, if it runs throughout the fiscal year, it may very well affect the military healthcare including the speed of paying TRICARE bills, and numerous family programs throughout DoD. So we will keep you informed about of the negotiations.
Sequestration to Ground the Blue Angels and Thunderbirds?
“The Air Force and the Navy will likely ground their demonstration squadrons, but each service has to agree before either can do it. Times are tough, and as the Pentagon looks to trim costs, the Navy’s Blue Angels and the Air Force’s Thunderbirds are seen as low-hanging fruit. The Navy had floated the idea recently, and now the Air Force has agreed that it, too, will likely ground its demo squadron this year. An Air Force official told Situation Report that if sequestration hits, the Air Force would ground the Thunderbirds, based at Nellis Air Force Base, Nev. It is also looking at canceling “aerial support” at air shows, patriotic holiday events, and local and national sporting events, which could top 1,000 events across the country. “It is likely the Thunderbirds…will not conduct their season this year,” Wendy Varhegyi, a spokeswoman for the Air Force, told Situation Report. And for the Navy, it’s simple math: grounding the squadron for a year is worth about $20 million, which equates to normal maintenance for five small warships, Situation Report is told. While no one in the Navy wants to cancel “the Blues,” as a Navy official said, it would be hard not to when the service is looking for trims that will affect shipbuilding and maintenance and operations. “For us, it would be difficult for us to justify not doing shipbuilding and maintenance when we’re still flying air shows.” The demonstration squadrons are used by both services as a recruiting and “community relations” tool. But with the budgetary axe swinging, they easily fall off the Pentagon’s must-have list. The Air Force did not have a dollar amount of what it would save by grounding the Thunderbirds.
Navy and Air Force budget officials have agreed to agree. Under the deal, if one service has to ground its demo squadron, so does the other. The agreement stems from the shared recognition that both services face the same challenge so if one cancels its program, the other one should cancel its program, too. “If one of us has to cancel the flight programs, then the other one has to,” a Navy official told Situation Report. “We’ve agreed we’re going to make this decision jointly, we’re not going to make it independently from one another.”
Commissaries and Exchanges (and Yes, Sequestration)
We still don’t have a budget from the Administrationbut when we get one we are expecting an attack on our Commissary and Exchange benefit. This has been a target of cutting for the last 20 years. Again and again we have needed to convince Washington leaders that this is a benefit that the total military family cares about. That is why last year we joined we a Coalition to “Save Our Benefit” Below id a press release from the Coalition announcing that next week is “Military Saves Week.” We are urging you to shop in the Commissaries and Exchanges this coming week both: to save money and to show Congress and the President that this is an extremely important benefit for you and your family.
Now if sequestration goes into effect DeCA (the Commissaries) will have to cut 9.2% of its operating and surcharge accounts amounting to $130 million. They are planning to close commissaries on Wednesdays from the end of April through September 21st. DeCA’s National Headquarters will also close every Wednesday. So, this means that all DeCA employees will face the 20% pay reduction.
So this is the time to go to your Commissaries and Exchanges-to demonstrate your support and to get bargains while it is still easy to do so.
DON’T FORGET YOU CAN WRITE LETTERS TO YOUR SENATORS AND REPRESENTATIVE