Furloughs: Fed Employees in the DMV area (Gainesville: purchase, movies)

[FindingZen]

Posts #168 and #180 were merged from another similar thread.

[coldbliss]

Deeply resentful of people who make a living off the Death, Violence and Surveillance Industrial Complex. Too many contractor executives got rich and bought mansions in Fairfax County. Too many worker bees with average skills got paid six-figure salaries. I simply cannot believe how much tax dollars were funneled into Beltway Bandit firms every year.

Since 2001, our national priorities focused on guns instead of butter. And boy, it really shows. The 2000-2010 decade had the lowest income gains since the Great Depression period. Unemployed people stayed unemployed for much longer periods than the recession recoveries during the 1970s, 80s and 90s. Homelessness skyrocketed in major metropolitan regions. Overall, the nation's economy plateaued and crashed by the end of the decade.

Just about every single major US city region suffered heavily from The Great Recession. Except for a couple of cities. Houston, TX weathered the storm because of the vibrant oil & gas industry. The other was the Washington, DC region. But at least the oilmen of Texas don't suck as many tax dollars from the US citizen as the Washington, DC government agencies and federal contracting industry.

I will add a new twist on Matt Taibbi's famous quote about Goldman Sachs: The world's most powerful investment bank[Goldman Sachs] is a great vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity, relentlessly jamming its blood funnel into anything that smells like money.

Or

The world's most powerful defense, intelligence and surveillance industry contractors are great vampire squids wrapped around the face of humanity, relentlessly jamming their blood funnels into anything that smells like money AND LEAVING NOTHING BUT CARNAGE IN THE MIDDLE EAST, LOSS PRIVACY AT HOME IN AMERICA AND A NATION WITH INSURMOUNTABLE DEBT.

I would add losing our soul because the Washington, DC region got RICH off defense and homeland security spending after 9/11. This is simply criminal. The Congress. The Pentagon. The Homeland Security agencies. The large and small government contracting firms. Guilty as charged. The rest of the United States is playing the world's smallest violin for those who lost jobs or got furloughs because of defense/homeland security budget cuts.

[checkup]

not so much for the rest of the country

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/03/us...d.html?hp&_r=0

Sequestration?s Impact - Graphic - NYTimes.com



March 2, 2013
Virginia’s Feast on U.S. Funds Nears an End
By TRIP GABRIEL
ARLINGTON, Va. — To listen to the human side of sequestration, wait in line here for the 595 bus to Reston, Va., a journey across a suburbia grown fat and happy on a federal spending boom in the past decade, primarily military.

While the rest of the country experienced a corrosive recession, unemployment in Arlington County, home of the Pentagon, never rose above 5 percent. Nearby Fairfax County, with a cyberintelligence industry that took off after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, gorged on government contracts to private companies.

“It was easy, and people got comfortable,” said Stephen S. Fuller of George Mason University, an expert on the regional economy. “They haven’t come to terms with the fact it isn’t going to be as easy.”

The Washington metropolitan area, especially Northern Virginia, is in line to experience the largest economic hit of any region from the $85 billion in spending cuts that President Obama made official late Friday.

Because the automatic cuts, known as sequestration, fall unevenly across the country, many Americans are greeting them with a shrug. Their nonchalance is heightened because the 2.4 percent lopped from a federal budget of $3.55 trillion is relatively small and will not happen all at once. Moreover, Congressional Republicans have accused the White House of exaggerating the impact for political gain.

But in Northern Virginia the cuts will be deeply felt, economists said, assuming there is no political deal to undo them, a dimming prospect. The White House said the Defense Department would furlough 90,000 civilian employees based in Virginia, the most of any state, reducing their salaries by 20 percent this year.

The ripple effect, as those employees pare expenses, put off car purchases and delay buying a home, is expected to be large. Some economists predict that Virginia will slip into recession.

...

[shamrock847]

Originally Posted by coldbliss

The rest of the United States is playing the world's smallest violin for those who lost jobs or got furloughs because of defense/homeland security budget cuts.

While I disagree with much of your post, I think this last point is very true.

There are a lot of people outside of NoVA who believe sequestration is a good thing and perhaps should go even farther. Lots of people around here don't get just how much resentment and animosity there is towards both federal employees and contractors in other places.

[FindingZen]

Note that post #183 was merged from another thread.

[Carlingtonian]

FYI, large agencies not doing furloughs at all include:

Smithsonian Institution
Small Business Administration
Department of State
Government Accountability Office
US Agency for International Development

[JfromReston]

Furlough at Environmental Protection Agency - 104 hours between now and the end of the fiscal year with 32 hours before June 15.

[FromGA]

So what is the current info related to sequestration through end of this fiscal year?

For personnel - are all departments going to furlough their staff for a few days a month April - September.

For contractors - National media was reporting that current contracts generally have funds already appropriated, and will not be an immediate impact. Is this correct?

Thanks.

[farplaner]

We're supposed to get the Furlough notices this Friday or next Monday...

[ChristineVA]

Originally Posted by FromGA

So what is the current info related to sequestration through end of this fiscal year?

For personnel - are all departments going to furlough their staff for a few days a month April - September.

For contractors - National media was reporting that current contracts generally have funds already appropriated, and will not be an immediate impact. Is this correct?

Thanks.

We get letters on Friday. Furlough starts around April 26th and goes through September.

Already funded contracts are safe until their renewal period (which is generally every 6 or 12 months). There was also talk about slowing the burn rate on some service contracts. Not sure how that works.