Sequestration is threatening our safety and security, or so Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel told Congress (again) yesterday. In a letter to members of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Hagel asked lawmakers to come up with a plan to stop the automatic spending cuts that would wipe $52 billion from the Pentagon’s 2014 budget.
It’s true that the sequester has already affected hundreds of thousands of Pentagon staffers: They’re taking a 20 percent pay cut and getting furloughed one day a week all summer. (Some are being good sports about it, spending their first day off this week on a “Federal Furlough Five-Mile Fun Run.”)
