The Defense Department is joining the
growing list of agencies sending out furlough notices thanks to sequestration. As workers start to get notices of furloughs that will begin April 25, they'll have the
opportunity to appeal. The effects will be widespread:
Uniformed service members are exempt from the furloughs, but defense leaders have warned Congress that they expect even active-duty units to experience some problems from sequestration given the close connections of the military and civilian parts of the department. Africa Command, for example, which is overseeing the U.S. forces assisting the French campaign against extremists in Mali, must furlough about 800 of its approximately 2,000 workers.
If the House and Senate can agree on a continuing resolution, the Defense Department and some other agencies would get
increased flexibility in managing the sequester cuts,
But neither plan restores funding lost to the automatic cuts or gives agency heads new authority to shift money from program to program to help manage their effects.
Furloughs will cut up to 20 percent of workers' pay in the coming months. All of this, remember—including the cuts to the beloved and usually sacrosanct military-industrial complex—brought to you by Republicans putting corporate tax loopholes above every other function of government.