One of the big unanswered questions right now is what happens when we hit the March 1 deadline for automatic budget cuts? Will the cuts be "brutal" as the President has described them, or will we not notice right away?
The Pentagon gave one answer on Wednesday as officials outlined the plans to furlough over 700,000 civilian defense workers to deal with the estimated $46 billion in cuts the military will have to make the rest of this fiscal year.
"Our estimate is $4-$5 billion of savings," said Defense Undersecretary David Hale.
"We feel we don't have any choice but to impose furloughs even though we would much prefer not to do it," Hale added.
But at the Pentagon briefing, and also at the White House briefing for reporters, there were skeptical questions as to whether such plans were overkill or not.
First, from the White House, with Press Secretary Jay Carney:
Q Jay, on the sequester, you said repeatedly today and yesterday that these are real and urgent cuts that would take place quickly. But The New York Times points out today that when the President was saying yesterday in his remarks that tens of thousands of parents will have to scramble to find childcare for their kids, that that's not really going to happen on March 1st, is it? I mean, how do you back up that tens of thousands of parents will be searching for childcare immediately?
MR. CARNEY: Well, look, whether these cuts -- whether that search begins on March 1st or in the near future, the impact on our economy, the impact on people's lives is real. Again, don't take my word for it. Macroeconomics Advisers, Moody's, the CBO all estimate massive job loss if the sequester is allowed to take effect. That's just a fact.
Q So what happens on March 1st? What happens on March 2nd? How quickly does this -- because when you say -- the President said that yesterday, too -- hundreds of thousands of jobs. There's not going to be hundreds of thousands of job losses the first week, are there?
MR. CARNEY: No, but there will be job losses, and that's been clear. Look, we have already --
Q But people want to quantify this because you're making -- you're scaring the public that this is going to happen, it's going to be horrible --
MR. CARNEY: So these outside economic firms are scaring the public? And the CBO is scaring the public?
Q I'm just saying, how do you back up that this is urgent and that hundreds of thousands of jobs are going to be lost?
Over at the Pentagon, reporters also zeroed in on questions about the level of funding that the military would be left with, and whether it would necessitate large furloughs.
Q: I have a broader question for you. Both the CBO [Congressional Budget Office] and the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments have said that a $45 billion cut would basically take the Defense Department back to 2007, 2006 levels, when you were fighting a huge war in Iraq and Afghanistan. Why can't the department absorb that kind of cut, rather than lay it all the -- and that experience all these purported draconian consequences? What's wrong with that picture? You seem to have a lot of money, if you look back at '07 and '06.
UNDER SEC. HALE: Well, first off, there's a timing issue. I mean, the $46 billion cut will occur five months into the year, when we have expended a lot of the -- particularly on the operating side, we've extended -- or we'll have expended roughly five-twelfths of the money, so we're going to have to take it in a seven-month period and without, frankly, you know, time to get ready.
But more generally, I'd say I'm always troubled, if we're trying to determine the adequacy of defense budgets based on real dollar levels in a particular year. I mean, I think that you need to look at the threats that we face, and they remain quite substantial, I guess complex set of security challenges is the word. And, therefore, I don't think returning to some arbitrary past number for defense makes sense.
...
Q: But there's no sense of, like, well, if this is going to happen and it's going to hurt so bad, let me give you some other options so that we all can get to this goal of, you know, deficit reduction that everyone seeks. So I'm just wondering, would that be a strategy for you guys to say, look, we're staring down the barrel here, let's do this instead, and we're cool with this, so let's do it (off mic)
UNDER SEC. HALE: Well, I mean, I think the president has made proposals; the Republicans have made proposals. I think the adjudication of those or the bargaining probably isn't -- I'm probably not the right guy to -- to be -- to be speaking to that, even though I'm intensely interested in the outcome.
As for how the sequester will impact the White House staff or the Congress, there aren't many details publicly available on that as yet.
On Capitol Hill, one chief of staff I spoke with yesterday said they are waiting to hear exactly how much the cuts would be for the Legislative Branch before deciding whether to institute furloughs, layoffs or pay cuts.
One lawmaker told me he has his office short on personnel right now, so he should be fine even if cuts are instituted.
Meanwhile, Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) told a news conference in his home state Wednesday that he is returning $600,000 in funds from his office account to the Treasury, as he tries to spend less than what his office was budgeted for.
Asked about the $85 billion in automatic cuts, Paul said it was just a "pittance" from the federal budget.
One man's pittance is another man's brutal cuts.
