Meeting today about Fed Employees Furlough
I am not in a Fed job nor work for a company with any Govt contracts so my job is not effected by all of this. Good for you being in a position to absorb it. Just enjoy the extra time with family. At least it's in the Spring and Summer. If I had a choice to take a 20% cut for a 22 week 4 day work week I would be a happy camper. Surely most others can find away to do the same. Cut out cable, eating out, etc for a while.
Nice suggestions, people will survive. That's not the point. The issue here is that Congress is becoming so devisive that they no longer compromise, allowing things like this to happen. They have no concern over the impact it will have on families throughout the country.
Only a select group of federal workers will be impacted, with the heaviest impact on DOD employees. Their pay has been frozen for the past 4 years, and now they face a 20 per cent cut in pay for almost half a year. At the same time food and gas prices continue to rise, so the purchasing power of these workers continue to fall and the Congress is on vacation.
In the last few decades, we have seen annual budgets not be passed, a complete shutdown of the federal government for a week during the Clinton Administration, a fiscal cliff deal not be passed until the last day of the year, resulting in the IRS not be responsive enough to returning taxpayer refunds (yet not changing the day taxes must be filed), this potential sequester 5 days away while the President plays golf in Hawaii and the Congress off on vacation. We have seen the national deficit increase from 7 to 12 trillion dollars in one year (1st year of the Obama Administration), and now projected increases to 22 trillion by 2018.
The sequester is projected to reduce the budget by $880 billion dollars, and the most majority of the "savings" will be applied to labor (government workers and contractors). Yest during this same time the deficit will increase 3 trillion.
People will survive, federal workers will manage, but we have a broken government system that shows no signs of improving.