Military braces for 'hardship' as defense furloughs begin

[OakRidgeStars]

For Hampton Roads residents, the DoD-funded gravy train will soon grind to a halt. This is going to get ugly.

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Military communities brace for 'hardship' as defense furloughs take effect

From Fox News
By Joseph Weber

Military communities across the country, after listening to the warnings about steep budget cutbacks for months, are now bracing for impact as furloughs for roughly 650,000 civilian Defense Department employees kick in this month.

Officials at military bases and other DoD facilities will have some flexibility in scheduling days off. But the furloughs will nevertheless result in non-essential civilian workers missing one paid workday a week -- a roughly 20 percent pay cut -- over the next three months.

Virginia’s Hampton Roads, which encompasses the massive Naval Station Norfolk, is expected to be among the country’s hardest-hit communities -- considering it has 14 military and Coast Guard facilities. Roughly half the regional economy is tied to the Defense Department.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/07 ... furloughs/

[dmharvey]

It is very unfortunate that cuts always start with the military, veterans, seniors, etc instead of foreign aid, career welfare recipients, etc. This decision is clearly motivated by political and it needs to change.

[Palladin]

But we can send Russhin choppers to afganistan,
Jets to egypt - who by the way did NOT have a coo, they say...
and bajillions worth of lectric stuff to aferka...

Make me wanna sing 'we are the world'...

[ShotgunBlast]

Not thrilled with the blunt instrument that the sequester is, but if that's the only tool those knuckleheads in DC know how to use to shave pennies off the deficit then that's what we gotta use. When only 30% of American households actually have a written monthly budget, should we be surprised that our elected representatives can't do the same thing?

Everyone says we're spending too much money.
Everyone's program is too important to cut.
No one wants their ox gored.

When everyone has that level of thinking, no wonder we are where we are. Crazy thing is, this $85B in cuts this year is just the tip of what really needs to be cut just to balance the books for this year. With all the hoopla over the sequester wrecking the economy, how are people going to feel when we have to make REAL cuts?

I do agree that it's asinine to talk about budget cuts at home but yet we can print money for aid overseas.

[VBshooter]

Time the Guvmint folks got to feel what the others in this country have been feeling for years,,, Getting laid off sucks and its worse when there are no decent jobs because the politicians' have sent them all away..

[Kreutz]

Had people listened to Ike the bloated defense industry wouldn't have sprang up in the first place and maybe these bright defense contractors could have created wealth in the private sector instead of spending redistributed tax dollars and Chinese debt.

[Taggure]

Well Congress has no worries about Sequestration they are exempt!

If anyone deserves a paycut it is Congress as they have not done thier job for the last several years.

Sequester Cuts Hit Federal Workers; Members of Congress Exempt
http://www.newsmax.com/Newsfront/seques ... /id/497422