Looming budget cuts expected to slam local military, economy
BREMERTON, Wash. - Automatic federal spending cuts will take effect if Friday's deadline passes without a resolution - and those $85 billion in cuts are expected to hit Puget Sound's military and economy hard.
Puget Sound Naval Shipyard in Bremerton is one place where the budget ax is going to cut deeply - and the effects will be felt far beyond the military.
Thousands of civilian employees work at the shipyard doing vital maintenance and repair work on Navy ships, and many of them will be furloughed under the cuts, resulting in loss of pay and a hit to the local economy.
U.S. Rep. Derek Kilmer, D-Wash., will arrive at the shipyard Friday to talk to workers showing up to work and answer their questions about how the coming budget cuts will effect them.
Other Puget Sound military installations also are bracing for the cuts, including Joint Base Lewis-McChord and Naval Air Station Whidbey Island.
"I think Congress is to blame for this - this is one of those self-imposed crises," says Rep. Kilmer. "We've gone beyond the fiscal cliff to the fiscal mountain range."
Here's a breakdown of what the White House says those automatic budget cuts will mean for local military bases:
• 29,000 civilian employees of the military will be furloughed, taking over $173 million in pay out of our economy.
• $124 million in cuts to the Army are expected at Joint Base Lewis-McChord.
• Air Force operations will take a $3 million hit.
• According to the Obama administration, cuts will also come to Navy aircraft maintenance work done at Whidbey Island.
Puget Sound Naval Shipyard in Bremerton is one place where the budget ax is going to cut deeply - and the effects will be felt far beyond the military.
Thousands of civilian employees work at the shipyard doing vital maintenance and repair work on Navy ships, and many of them will be furloughed under the cuts, resulting in loss of pay and a hit to the local economy.
U.S. Rep. Derek Kilmer, D-Wash., will arrive at the shipyard Friday to talk to workers showing up to work and answer their questions about how the coming budget cuts will effect them.
Other Puget Sound military installations also are bracing for the cuts, including Joint Base Lewis-McChord and Naval Air Station Whidbey Island.
"I think Congress is to blame for this - this is one of those self-imposed crises," says Rep. Kilmer. "We've gone beyond the fiscal cliff to the fiscal mountain range."
Here's a breakdown of what the White House says those automatic budget cuts will mean for local military bases:
• 29,000 civilian employees of the military will be furloughed, taking over $173 million in pay out of our economy.
• $124 million in cuts to the Army are expected at Joint Base Lewis-McChord.
• Air Force operations will take a $3 million hit.
• According to the Obama administration, cuts will also come to Navy aircraft maintenance work done at Whidbey Island.
We have to start somewhere. Â
The 2013 FY budget starting October 1, 2012 was or is about 3.8 Trillion Bucks with a projected deficit of $900 billion give or take a few tens of billions and a forced cut of $85 billion is going to bring financial disaster?  Wow, that is not even hardly 10 percent of the deficit. I wonder how many unneeded bombs and new military aircraft would it take to absorb the cut, or how many tax loopholes for the rich oil companies would have to be closed . . . the oil companies probably would just blink. Actually, for deficit reduction, probably won't contribute much, if any, at all.
The problem with this is that it doesn't just affect the government workers. Those same government workers spend money in the communities where they live. This will affect stores, restraurants, and other reatil establishments.
2.4% Cut across the board from the top. Trickle down/supply-side economic theory is hated by the left, but the left is now gonna see that it is real. If $$ from on high dissapears, the people down low feel it. When the $$ from on high is there, the people down low feel it.
The problems with socialism is that eventually you run out of other peoples' money !!!!!!!!
Personal income decreased by $505.5 billion in January, or 3.6%, compared to December (on a seasonally adjusted and annualized basis). That's the most dramatic decline since January 1993, according to the Commerce Department. -
See more at: http://money.cnn.com/2013/03/01/news/economy/income-spending-saving/#sthash.5QtBwCBm.dpuf
Who cares - it's time the government learned to live within their means.
@Conway the Contaminationist Please explain who this "government" is that needs to learn to live within their means?
No it won't !!
More scare mongering for .gov and KOMO. I as again how many storys are you going to publish about a 85 billion cut out of a descresi3.60 TRILLION budget. Almost everybody on this web site took a 2% cut in pay Jan 1st. This is only a 2.4% of descressionary spending.Â
@Iarehere Huh? Â It's a 20%% cut in pay for everyone working at the shipyards, how do you figure it's only 2.4%%? Â They are being forced to take 1 day off unpaid every week.Â
@CommutingGuy Total descrresonary spending is going down 2.4% if you include SS and Medicare it is less than 1.3% of spending. IF they cut 20% of shipyard worker pay it is the choise of .gov NOT because of a need. .gov wastes so much on conferences they could cut 85 billion in a heartbeat if they would puit with all the pork.
Long story short is .gov doesn't spend wisely, I will bet you do, I know I do along with most of the American people.
Right on, this is what we need, a lot less people on the government payroll.
@Tolly371 Unfortunately this will affect those government workers that actually DO something for their pay. It is upper management and overpaid elective office holders that need to go.
As a former active duty service member the shipyard in Bremerton over hires employees as it is. on top of that all I hear from my friends is that, all they do is play cards, come in for over time and have no real work to earn our hard earned tax dollars, so maybe this is a wise cut to eliminate people who are there essentially stealing our tax dollars that people outside the shipyard truly work hard for.
Well I'd like to see the Senators, Congressmen, and members of the house lose at least 20% of their pay like I know some of the people working in other Gov. positions are going to lose. After all these are the people that think it is good politics to hold out on everything suggested by the opposing party even though it could help the situation. It's more fun to hurt the little guy who voted you into office than it is to try to find a cure to the problem by getting along and giving once in awhile. I'll never vote for another Republician they've done this too many times, and it is hurting our whole country but they don't care. Our President can't do any good because they always block him but I bet they will be the first to talk trash about him when this is all over. It will be said it was his fault and he didn't try to stop it.
@yoda It is not Republican or Democrat, it is INCUMBENTS that you want to vote against.
There is only one solution for the rage expressed in the comments below:
In EVERY SINGLE RACE VOTE AGAINST EVERY SINGLE INCUMBANT until they get the message to do your jobs, control the budget OR YOU ARE OUT!! There is no good reason to have these multi-term power brokers in office anyway.
They only ones to suffer, at least initially, are the special interest groups.
@GOATCUTTER Absolutely agree 100%.
I love how DC gets to fight like two year olds in an unsupervised day care and we're the ones who get to suffer. The current system of politics show they still get rich, the public takes it in the shorts, and they keep getting re-elected. So much for a government for the people by the people...
@what? Did YOU vote for any incumbents during the last election?
Has anyone noticed that there isn't a word about POTUS or FLOTUS curtailing their travels?
@6t6tripowr At least the President is in DC which is more than we can say for congress.
@justmyopinion @6t6tripowr playing golf doesn't count as work does it?
Well maybe they should cut the high salaries of the idiots that is doing this cutting. It always is the little guy who pays. Medicare, welfare, section 8, food stamps, Wic program, teachers, police and fireman laid off, I know most of the cuts are for freebies. But for crying out loud the Senate, House of Reps, and congress could do their share and cut their pay. A few governor's could also help by cutting their money by 10%. But OH no they could not be asked to do that. Some of these cuts are taking the food out of babies mouths.
Bottomline.....Nothing will happen,,,,,,,,,waiting........................
What's the top priority of the PotUS? National defense.
What's 1st on the chopping block? National defense.
Who got MILLIONS of Defense hardware? The Muslim Brotherhood.
Anyone else have a problem with that? Cutting our own defense budget while giving millions to those that wish us ill?
You can't make this stuff up. It's true. Obie and our elected officials give support to terrorists and ignore the American citizens.
Our children are starving, our homeless have nowhere to go, and our elderly are left to rot in thoughtless exile.
Yet 'giving' those that hate the 'west' is ok.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/dec/6/muslim-brotherhood-inherits-us-war-gear/
Who's the 'enemy' here?
@bobalouie So let me get this straight, You are up set that we have given old tanks and jets to Egypt.  Tanks that haven't been used since 1992 (when the M1A2 came out) and F16's a jet that we have sold to 24 other countries.
Secondly the DOD is half the cuts, the other half comes from non defense related budget. Â The 2012 DOD budget was 671 billion, I think they can get buy on 620 billion, give or take a few billion.
Children starve because of their parents poor choices and the homeless are homeless because of theirs. Â
You always seem to leave out those little important parts. Â Or is Obama to blame for bad parenting too? Â
Do automatic federal spending cuts affect any of the lawmakers paychecks?Â
This article makes it seem like Washington alone is getting cuts of $85 billion. The actual cuts are small compared to the big picture, just look at the money the state has already wasted on the 520 bridge. If we calculate all the wasted tax dollars in this state alone we can easily keep those jobs. To be honest the majority of the population will not see or feel any difference, sure the ones affected will have something to say but we do live in America take your skills to a company that will keep you hired.
The US has a spending problem, you donât solve the problem by throwing more money at it.
@Nathan Boi  I agree. 2.4%% isn't really that much. Many of out here in Realityland have had to adjust our incomes/spending/saving/etc more than that in the last few years. Heck, aren't we ALL spending about 100%% more on a gallon of gas now than we were a few years back ??
Personal income decreased by $505.5 billion in January, or 3.6%, compared to December (on a seasonally adjusted and annualized basis). That's the most dramatic decline since January 1993, according to the Commerce Department. - See more at: http://money.cnn.com/2013/03/01/news/economy/income-spending-saving/#sthash.5QtBwCBm.dpuf
Play the Budget Puzzle. Â There needs to way more done to balance the budget. http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2010/11/13/weekinreview/deficits-graphic.html
Well for all you sky lookers the Blue Angels have been canceled making Seafair even more boring then before....
@Windowseat I know I will be taking a VERY unpopular stance here but the Blue Angels AND the Thunderbirds should have been canceled decades ago.
HAHAHA! Check out the new $6 MILLION FEDERALLY FUNDED deer and raccoon crossing Obama just bought us here in Redmond! Love this thing! http://www.komonews.com/news/local/King-Co-to-build-wildlife-crossing-near-dangerous-Redmond-road-150530295.html?m=y&smobile=y
@dorimonsonfan I can help with the deer troubles in Redmond for much less that $6 MILLION. I'll only charge the government a measley $10,000 for deer I "protect" from being hit by a car. I'll do it safely and humanely, then butcher 'em myself and give the meat wrapped and all to homeless shelters. No extra fee for the butchering and wrapping, as that would be greedy of me.
That's per deer by the way
ya know.........expenses and such..........
college fund for junior
insurance, taxes, etc
you know, supplies..........
butcher paper
ammo
gotta pay the bills
@dorimonsonfan That's a lot but it doesn't come near the 220 Million $$$$$$$ 1/4 mile long bridge over a 30 foot wide Gold Creek @ Hyak on Sno pass ( I-90). Never have seen a deer or an elk there in hundreds of trips over the pass. but we got real nice bridge out of it.Â
@dorimonsonfan I usually like what you say, but here you are referencing a very old article. As far as I know, that crossing hasn't been built. It might have been moth-balled due to budget cuts. Do you have more recent information?
@Vinnie @dorimonsonfan pretty sure it's still moving forward. They have been doing massive construction on novelty hill road for about a year now so I avoid that route. The deer crossing is part of the grand plan there.
@Furd @dorimonsonfan Oh he certainly does know where Redmond is, it's his personal MS cash cow and he has his bucket and three legged stool available whenever required.
@dorimonsonfan Totally off the subject but have you ever asked Dori's coworkers what they think of him? I have, several of them, in private and, just to be fair, they were not other on air personalities.
'Nuff said!
@Furd I agree he's not the brightest predident ever, but do you really think he's unaware of the city microsoft is in? a lot of ms executives are obamas personal atm machines.
@dorimonsonfanYou could have left out the "Obama just bought us" and I would have agreed with you. I rather suspect that President Obama hasn't a clue where either Redmond OR Novelty Hill Road are located.
@Vinnie @dorimonsonfan Vinnie, come now... Truth has nothing to do with news forum posts... It's all about "shock-n-awe"... nothing more