Defense furloughs set to start

The Washington Post reports:

A day without pay, the first of 11 through September, comes this week for more than 650,000 people who hold civilian jobs with the Defense Department. But officials worry that the Pentagon will be hit even harder in 2014 by having to impose layoffs if automatic budget cuts continue as planned. About 85 percent of the department’s nearly 900,000 civilians around the world will be furloughed one day each week over the next three months, according to the latest statistics provided by the Pentagon. But while defense officials were able to shift money around to limit the impact of the cuts to furloughs this year, thousands of civilian, military and contract jobs could be on the chopping block next year.

The annals of big government.