Civilian Workers
The most immediate effect may be on civilian Defense Department employees, Harrison said. According to the report, as many as 108,000 of them “could lose their jobs in the weeks immediately after sequestration goes into effect” if Congress fails to come up with an alternative deficit-reduction plan.
The Obama administration has exempted military personnel from the cuts. Sequestration wouldn’t eliminate any uniformed military jobs, cut military pay, eliminate any programs immediately or close any military bases, Harrison said.
Harrison’s conclusions are similar to those in a Bloomberg Government report by defense analyst Kevin Brancato. In the BGOV Insight published yesterday, Brancato said almost half of next year’s sequestration cuts in defense spending will occur in 2014 and beyond.
The actual cut in spending, or budget outlays, next year would amount to 4.6 percent for defense programs on average, according to Harrison’s report. Procurement programs would be cut by 3.5 percent, research and development by 5.9 percent and operations and maintenance by 6.9 percent.
The defense reductions are part of $1.2 trillion in automatic, across-the-board cuts to domestic and national- security programs over a decade that will start in January unless Congress and President Barack Obama act to block them.
The cuts were imposed after talks failed last year on a bipartisan plan to curb the nation’s increasing debt.