{"id":36991,"date":"2013-08-07T06:46:05","date_gmt":"2013-08-07T10:46:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/?p=36991"},"modified":"2013-08-07T09:14:14","modified_gmt":"2013-08-07T13:14:14","slug":"dod-finds-some-spare-change","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/?p=36991","title":{"rendered":"DoD Finds Some Spare Change"},"content":{"rendered":"

Well, it looks like DoD found some spare change under all those dayroom and lounge sofa cushions.\u00a0 According to published reports<\/a>, DoD civilian employees will now only be furloughed for a total of 6 days this fiscal year vice the previously-announced 11.<\/p>\n

Kudos to the SECDEF for making this happen.\u00a0 I don’t agree with some of his policies, but here IMO he did the right thing.\u00a0 His predecessor left him this mess, and to his credit he seems to have managed to minimize the damage.<\/p>\n

Further:\u00a0 given the complex nature of the DoD budget and changing conditions worldwide, even managing to find this miniscule percentage of the overall DoD budget used here was no small feat.\u00a0 The $1.5 billion DoD managed to “find” and reprioritize – only $1 billion of which went to salaries – represents less than 0.3% of DoD’s base budget.<\/p>\n

I will make two observations, however.\u00a0 First, the lack of planning by the previous DoD leadership contributed greatly to this mess.\u00a0 DoD leadership actively refused to plan for the possibility of sequestration because they thought it “would never happen” – and publicly said so.<\/p>\n

Seems to me I’ve heard a quote that’s pertinent about that type of conduct:\u00a0 “When you fail to plan, you plan to fail.”<\/p>\n

Second:\u00a0 that lack of planning severely hurt some folks, particularly lower-graded DoD civilian employees.\u00a0 Had appropriate planning been done starting in January, the furlough could have likely been spread over a much longer period (say, 6 months at 1 day per month) vice being imposed as 1 day per week.\u00a0 No change in net dollar savings – but losing 5% of income for 6 months is generally easier to handle than losing 20% of income for a month and a half.<\/p>\n

Still:\u00a0 give credit where credit is due.\u00a0 Kudos, Mr. Secretary.<\/p>\n

Now, could we ask you to talk to some of your 3- and 4-star generals about combat and its actual<\/span> physical requirements – and about the necessity to have and use a spine sometimes?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Well, it looks like DoD found some spare change under all those dayroom and lounge sofa … DoD Finds Some Spare Change<\/span>Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":623,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[189],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-36991","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-defense-cuts"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36991","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/623"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=36991"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36991\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=36991"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=36991"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=36991"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}