Originally Posted by
N9373M
Despite the fact 88% of stats are made up, here's my take as a fed. I'm looking at 26 furlough days between April and the end of the FY, or one day a week. That's a 20% cut to me. It also messes with alot of HR stuff (service computation dates, leave accrual, TSP, TSP matching, and my insurance rates stay the same - so it's actually > 20%)
FY2014 is said to be worse. It's a big picture (2.2% national)/small picture (20% ME) cut.
You have my sympathy, and I wish you had been treated better.
There was much debate on this cut and much opportunity to cut the real pure fat from what should be a budget, but for whatever reason this was not done.
Debt is not a problem as long as you can issue it at near zero interest, but should the interest rate rise out of control it can quickly balloon to the greatest expense in the entire budget. Interest now consumes a bit over 6% of the budget, a few points rise in rates could make it larger than the entire military budget, a few more points and it becomes the primary cost for the entire budget.
On the other hand, the treasury issued 80 billion in new debt in a single day on 2/28/13, so in effect we have not cut at all for all of the kabuki that went on.
Not sure why a sound currency is ever allowed to be a football to be played with.