The  news today coming out of the US Department of Defense is not good if  you are one of the thousands of civilians working for the military.  Within 4 days of this fall's presidential election, civil servants may  be receiving notice of lay off. The news is also not good if you happen  to be President Barack Obama and seeking a 2nd term in office.

Defense contractors have already warned that they may begin laying off employees within a month of the  election. That is also thousands of workers withot a job heading into  the voting booth. Couple those numbers with the DOD layoffs and you have  a scenario no President wants to face.

Tens  of thousands of civilian employees in the Defense Department could  receive warnings about potential layoffs four days before the November  election if impending spending cuts aren't averted, hitting presidential  battleground states such as Virginia and Florida hard.

The  alerts would come in addition to any that major defense contractors  might send out at the same time to their workers under an  often-overlooked law, a prospect that is unnerving the White House  roughly three months before voters go to the polls.

Frederick  Vollrath, a senior Pentagon official, outlined the timeline for  notification of possibly 10 percent of the 800,000-strong civilian  workforce in testimony Thursday before a House panel. He cautioned,  however, that no decision has been made on job cuts as Washington  grapples with the looming, $1.2 trillion automatic reductions in defense  and domestic programs.

The across-the-board cuts kick in on Jan.  2, and under the law, defense employees must be notified 60 days in  advance — Nov. 2. Congress must be informed of any layoffs 45 days prior  to that, or mid-September.

Civilian defense employees are  heavily concentrated in Virginia, a state crucial to Obama's hopes for  re-election. Their numbers also are significant at military bases in  Florida and North Carolina, two other battleground states, and  installations scattered around the country.

These states also are  home to major defense contractors such as Lockheed Martin Corp. and  their construction facilities. Last week, Robert J. Stevens, chairman  and chief executive officer of Lockheed Martin, told Congress that the  across-the-board reductions could result in layoffs of 10,000 employees  from his company of 120,000 workers.

He also signaled that notices could go out 60 days in advance to the company's employees.

The  notification is required under the Worker Adjustment and Retraining  Notification Act, which went into effect in February 1989. The law  designed to protect workers and communities requires employers to  provide notice 60 days in advance of a plant closing or mass layoffs.

The law applies to companies with 100 employees or more.

While  the possibility of layoff notices causes consternation at the White  House, it also worries lawmakers whose districts are home to Defense  Department employees and military contract workers.

http://startribune.com/nation/163901256.html

From  the Cornfield, yes, we need to rein in government spending. Yes, we  need to streamline across the board including the DOD. But as we talk  cuts in spending, we must also realize we are not talking abstract  numbers. We are talking people's jobs. We are talking decisions that  affects families.

On the political front, this is one batlle I am sure the President was hoping not to fight.