The Pentagon said on Wednesday the White House budget office has directed it to begin planning how to implement billions of dollars in across-the-board spending reductions if Congress and the president fail to agree to avert the cuts before January 2/.../
Civilian employees of the Department of Defense are likely to be among the earliest to feel the cuts, according to an analysis by Todd Harrison of the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, a national security think tank.
He estimated in a report in August that as many as 108,000 civilian employees of the department could lose their jobs in the weeks immediately after sequestration goes into effect. The president has exempted military salaries from the spending cuts.