You have to understand all the founders primary concern was with national security. What would they say about a company such as lockheed . I am of the opinion that based on how they acted in other instances, they would have grudgingly favored a bailout of lockheed because it supplied the United States with its top fighter jet and reconnaissance airplane. I think you could make an argument they would have supported the bailout of chrysler in the 1980s but not a bailout today. What is the difference . Chrysler back then made tanks. They were our only tank manufacturer. When chrysler comes out of debt and repay is the government loan, the main when they do so is by selling off the Tank Division and plowing the money back into the company. The author and professor will take your calls, emails, facebook posts, and tweets on sunday at noon eastern on c span2. Washington journal continues. Host at the table now is Marcus Weisgerber here to talk about sequestration cuts due to take effect this friday. We will take a look at various agencies are facing cuts, which they will mean for workers and the impact this party. We start with ways sequestration will impact the Defense Department. Marcus weisgerber, what happens at the fence . Guest on friday, nothing will happen yet. Everything will happen on march 27. Theyre taking precautions for what will amount to be bought at 46 billion cut in 2013 between the end of march and the end of september. Host where do the cuts come from . Guest they will be across the board. The only place they will not come from its military personnel. Soldiers will not have any effect. Host break this down. Speak about hardware. Guest the procurement and research and Development Accounts will be hit by the 10 cut. In reality, they will probably get hit more. Personnel will not be hit. We are halfway through a year and dod has not been making any cuts to date. They have to make up for what they have not done. Host much has been made of the civilian cuts coming. What is happening . Guest civilians and the of the have been notified. About eight and thousand of them are facing a 22day furlough. That is about a month for them and a day per week for the remainder of the fiscal year. What about the planets . Guest deployments will not be effective. Deployments will not be affected. They will continue to be funded at default level. The war accounts will be subject to sequestration. Dot will have to ask congress to take money from other places and shift it into those operational accounts so the soldiers have what they need. Host some more of the figures from the Associated Press as far as the defense cuts and sequestration. We are reading about a 3 billion cut in the military health care system. The pentagon could be restructuring contracts. What do you want to say about those areas . Guest training is going to be cut. Dod has said only unit preparing to deploy will be training. Everybody else in the air force and navy, the planes will be grounded. They will take the money they would have used to do the training and shifted into the war account to pay for afghanistan. Try care tricare is what you mentioned. People will still get benefits can be seen by doctors. Host a big fight in washington over the defense aspect. What else should we know about the defense area . Guest there will be an impact. There are two sides of sequestration. There is the side that we need to cut federal spending and defense needs to play a role. Talking to people in the pentagon, a lot of them would agree with that. The problem is they are halfway through the year. They have not been preparing for this at all. They will have to squeeze all of these cuts into a sixmonth period. The next six months, it is implemented, it will have an impact. In 2014, it will probably be more manageable. They will be able to choose where they want to make the cuts. Host our guest is Marcus Weisgerber of defense news. The first call is from mark from michigan, a democrat. Good morning. Caller hello . I was wondering. The money appropriated for Hurricane Sandy was over 50 billion. The money to be taken away from this is about the same. They are saying the sequestration is so terrible about job loss. How come it has not affected job gains on the east coast in the same amount in the short time they have to spend that money . Guest i read something this morning saying the sandy money is possibly subject to sequestration. There will be significant job loss with a lot of agencies. They say theyre could be up to 2 million jobs lost. That is due to contracts being slowed or stopped or terminated. ,ost lets hear from elizabeth a republican. Caller i have a lot of relatives that live south themselves. I am wondering. I am sympathetic with their government, the especially defense, is overreaching. I am wondering if relocating some military bases would take some of the pressure off of the intergovernment [indiscernible] guest i can talk about the number of bases is constantly up for debate. Experts say the military has to many bases in the United States. The problem is there is no appetite in congress to close a base. When you close a base, that means the loss of jobs. It is also said you do not see much money up front when you close a base. That savings is seen five or 10 years down the road. Host we go to emily from wisconsin. Caller it is my understanding that when there is a budget, last year of our government spent 4. 3 trillion. This year, we have a budget of 4. 8 trillion. From what i am understanding from what everybody has been saying this morning, they are going to cut from the 4. 8 trillion. They are going to take 85 billion offer of that. How is that going to help . Were still going to be adding billions of dollars to our debt. One of the reasons i am an independent is to bring our spending down. From what everybody has said, all you are going to cut is the future moneys the government is going to spend. To me, that is not a cut. Guest you raise a valid point. Sequestration would have an impact if carried out through the 10 years it was put on the books for. For dod, and you are talking about 500 billion. You are right. With the figures you are talking about, it is not a huge one. Host senior officials recently briefed reporters ahead of sequestration. We have about a minute of tape from the undersecretary who is also the comptroller at dod on the cutbacks and furloughs for civilians. Here is a look. [video clip] furloughs is the only way we have to quickly cut personal funding. We have established a general approach we will follow. One is to make them our approach of last resort. We will insist on consistency across the department. All organizations will furlough for about the same number of days. And there will be limited exceptions to these furloughs. We will accept except civilians deployed in combat zones. We will not furlough civilians required to maintain life or property, but only to the extent they have to do that to maintain the safety of life and property. They are not automatically exempted from furloughs. Only to the extent managers determined to have to exempt some to maintain the safety of life and property. Senatorconfirmed political appointees are exempt by law. We will exempt our four national and please our Foreign National employees. Host the pentagon has said the majority of the 800,000 civilians will be furloughed to make up for the shortfall. What else do you want to add to what the senior official said . Guest one thing dod has started doing in preparation for the cuts is they are slow in the way they pay contractors. Typically, they have up to 30 days to pay them. In the past few years, they have made it so they pay them right away. As soon as the paperwork is approved, they will cut a check. It can take 10 or 15 days. Now in an attempt to free up billions of dollars, they will slow the payments to them. The big contract awards, theyre not awarding major contracts for weapons, equipment, and stuff like that unless there are critical for the war effort. Host lets hear from donna, arlington, texas, democrat for our guest. Caller i am a widow and veterans wife. Are they going to be doing any cutbacks on pensions and stuff . Guest i am not sure. I believe Veterans Benefits are exempt. And would assume that would fall in that category. I would assume that would fall in that category. Employees are in the same boat duty is in. Civilians would face a for loan. If you make a call to a call center, it could make a difference in that were getting paperwork approved. Host thank you for waiting, curtis. Were talking dod and sequestration. Caller my comments are relative to the subject on the air, defense cuts. He was mentioning clearcutting tricare and military training. I wonder when they are going to cut the [indiscernible] budget. The president and his wife, almost daily see where they are taking flights which cost the taxpayers multimillion dollar. Mrs. Obama going overseas. They take all their friends, guests, and reporters with them. The biggest percentage of their flights are for political purposes. Do you have any comment on this . Guest in the pentagon and dod as well as other federal agencies, they are curtailing travel for employees for state conferences and stuff along those lines. That stuff has already been frozen. Sequestration, there are waivers that have been approved. There have been some Major Military trade shows in the last two weeks down south. It is yet to be seen whether those will continue if the cuts go into effect. Host senator john mccain was on the talk shows over the weekend. Here is what he had to say. [video clip] we have already cut undersecretary gates. We are on track to cut another 487 billion out of defense. Now you lay on top of that these enormous reductions as well. By the way, defense is 19 of the overall discretionary budget. Defense is taking 50 of the cuts. If we do not believe our military leaders, who do we believe . I think what were doing now to the men and women serving is unconscionable because they deserve a predictable life in the military. These federal employees do not know when they will be laid off or not. Not to mention the contractors. Host john mccain says enough is enough at defense. Guest that has been the message consistently. Robert gates laid out these cuts. His successor, leon panetta, has been against these cuts from minute one. He has been one of the few people in washington since the day the Super Committee failed was saying we cannot have further cuts to defense. Host what did chuck hagel have to say . Guest he has been interesting. He has agreed with secretary panetta. Chuck hagel is the nominee for defense secretary yet to be approved by congress. He has agreed with secretary panetta that the cuts would harm the military. He is against the way they will be carried out. The 46 billion over six months. During his confirmation, he said something that has not been set but other folks and officials, that we will be prepared for it. He has been quiet since his hearing, which is to be expected. I guess we will have to wait and see. Host congress is coming back into session. We hear the senate may have competing bills. You can watch it live on c span2. What do you expect to come out of washington prior to friday . Guest everything goes to the last minute it seems these days. We have been seen that the last few years. Whether something happens this week, it is highly doubtful, speaking with my colleagues on the hill every day. They are not optimistic something will happen by the end of this week. The cuts will not be until the end of march. Sequestration will be triggered on march 1. There will be a month where everyone can argue more and try to work out some sort of deal. Host 1 bureau wants to know how many days my business should expect to wait to be paid by dot. Guest Small Businesses will still get paid as quick as possible, approved Small Businesses. It is more the big time contractors like lockheed. They will not be getting their checks as quickly. Last year, omb made it so the prime contractors would get money quicker to feed their small subcontractors quicker and help to boost the economy. Host mike is calling from arizona, an independent. Caller the crux of the problem seems to be new tax revenue is provided by the private sector on profits and pay well. The federal employees and federal government withdraws money from the general fund to pay their employees. When the employees pay back the socalled taxes, which is nothing more than returning the same money to the syntax fund, you do not have that much more new revenue going into the general fund. It is across the board. It is regular employees, and government employees, military and police. That is why we face the deficit we are facing. The private sector has been so downgraded and cut apart we are in an upside down period. The government is top heavy. We are teetering on a thin point. Until they can bring the private sector back and get something going, there will not be that much more new tax revenues going into the general fund. The sequestration cuts are simply a real cut and not just manipulated numbers on paper like the 2 trillion they have talked about. Guest the Defense Budget has grown a lot. It has doubled over the past decade or so. After major conflicts like vietnam, now again you are seeing a drawdown after the cold war, if you are seeing oneout after afghanistan and iraq. Your sink another one after afghanistan and iraq. The department will have to resize itself as well as the industry that supports it. Host back to the of the from the recent briefing. The point was made sequestration does not a fool just folks in washington. Effects folks around the country and the world. Here is the acting undersecretary of defense. [video clip] sequestration will be felt in local command and the local communities. That is all over the United States and all over the globe. This is not a beltway phenomenon. More than 80 of our civilians work outside the d. C. Metro area. They lived and worked in every state of the union. If furloughs are enacted, civilians will experience a 20 decrease in their pay between late april and september. As a result, many families will be forced to make difficult decisions on where their financial obligations fly. Host more about the bite at dod. Guest a believe they said 90,000 jobs in virginia alone. You will see this in places where the military have major combat commands with heavy staff presents. Less uniforms and more civilians. Have space if you command. Places like in colorado, u. S. Space command. Places like that will be hit more. Host we have an independent caller from virginia. Welcome to the program. Caller i work for an agency that does receive federal grants dollars. We recently received emails saying not to cut expenditures in anticipation of sequestration. How or why are we receiving grants dollars in excess of what we need to maintain operations . These agencies can cut funds. Why are they not doing that anyway . Why does it have to be in anticipation of sequestration . Thank you. Guest not knowing your specific issue, i cannot comment. Secretary bob gates who was a holdover from the bush and administration, he did a lot to clean up within the within dod a lot of the waste and inefficiencies. The verdict is still out as to how much they will save long term. There is a big consensus around town but a lot more can be done. He got people talking about it. The word you hear a lot in the pentagon when you talk to budget people or operators on the battlefield, people are talking about ways they can save money. Host baltimore, republican, matt. Caller i am a former opposition official of dod. I am now 85 and retired. I keep in close touch with the programs going on. It seemed to me the sequestration is a marvelous opportunity not to cut across the board but to do a vertical cut on some of the less advantageous programs we have. F22, dd 1000, if we just cut those programs we could get two or three times the amount of money we need for sequestration without any further impact. What is your opinion . Guest as to the specifics, if you kill programs, you will save money. Often you hear the joint strike fighter, the fighter jet that will be flown by the navy, air force, and marines. It will be flown by a number of Foreign Countries as well. The price tag on the program right now is 395 billion over 40 or 50 years. That is a lot of money. 7 billion is being put in each year. If you cut it, it will make a dent. If you start killing a number of programs, the more programs to kill, the more money you will save. Host our National Guard furloughs coming . Guest civilians, possibly. As far as soldiers, they are military personnel. Host lets go to david in winfield, kan. , a democrat. Caller were talking about cutting the across the different departments of the government. Most people that pay taxes for middle class, probably make 60,000 for a family of four. All the congressmen and senators and people that run the government that make 160,000 a year, why do you not take a cut . You cannot pass a budget and do your job. Why should we pay you for not doing your job . You know . Guest it is a good point you brought up. There is a bill where is sequestration happens, they will not get paid. There a senior dod officials who have said they will not collect a paycheck if the cuts go into effect. Host this is from twitter. Guest like i said earlier, that has to hit to the ebb and flow of defense spending. If spending is going to be reduced, the support structure is going to have to consolidate itself. The Defense Industry has been anticipating this for several years. A lot of them have been consolidating in terms of employees and facilities. They have been realigned where they have people. Host the last caller, richard from kentucky, independent college. Go ahead. Caller if i was in charge, and would cut the military by 50 . I would cut the military by 50 . When they got over that, and would cut another 20 . Here is why. You just said they had doubled in the last 10 years. If you take away what we used to go into iraq and of kurdistan, they would be back to prewar levels, their normal levels. Then you have to cut another 25 out of that just to get anything real out of it. Otherwise, they will keep the star trek programs going in the military costing billions of dollars. Nobody sees a product when they see it does not work. Here is my problem with the whole thing. Host 70 cut back to an old number. Guest that would be difficult now. The budget has grown that much. Entitlements and health care have also grown exponentially. Personnel costs are squeezing out other things such as