“You only have seven months remaining in the fiscal year to administer that cut,” he said. “By March 1, DoD will already have spent five months’ worth of the money in those accounts.”
That means DoD would have to reduce payroll expenses for the rest of the year by 15 percent, Harrison said.
“If you’re going to reduce your payroll expenses by 15 percent for the remainder of the year and you’re going to do it through furloughs, that means you have to furlough virtually every single DoD civilian for the maximum amount of time you can under the law, which is one month,” he said.
Pentagon Press Secretary George Little on Jan. 8 called the current fiscal state of affairs in Washington “a mess” and “highly problematic.”
“We need to avoid the fiscal cliff that we could go off on March 1,” he said during a briefing. “It’s time for Congress to avert sequestration once and for all … This is about the defense of the United States and the people who serve in the United States military and our civilian personnel, also, who carry out missions and support of the defense of this nation.”