By DONNA CASSATA
Associated Press
WASHINGTON — Senate Democrats rejected a Republican effort to force defense contractors to send out notices of possible job layoffs four days before the election, calling the move politically driven and purely speculative based on looming spending cuts.
The Senate Appropriations Committee voted 17-13 against an amendment by Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C. The provision would have overturned Labor Department guidance this week to federal contractors that they do not have to warn their employees about potential layoffs from the automatic, across-the-board cuts that kick in Jan. 2.
A 1980s law, known as the WARN Act, says those notices would have to go out 60 days in advance of the cuts, which would put them in workers’ mailboxes four days before the Nov. 6 election.
The guidance letter said it would be “inappropriate” for employers to send such warnings because it remains speculative if and where the $110 billion in automatic cuts might occur. About half the cuts would be in defense.
“This is bad policy, not necessary and appears to serve a political agenda,” Appropriations Committee Chairman Daniel Inouye, D-Hawaii, told Graham and the panel.
Graham insisted the cuts aren’t speculative but rather the law. He quoted from then-Sen. Barack Obama, who in 2007 pushed legislation calling for 90-day notices for employees of potential layoffs.
“Contractors are not the problem. We’re the problem. We created this mess,” Graham said, arguing that the notices would force Congress to come up with an alternative to avert the automatic cuts.
President Obama and congressional Republicans agreed last summer to a deficit-cutting bill that includes a mechanism that would trigger across-the-board cuts to defense and domestic programs totaling $1.2 trillion over 10 years.
Ppresidential candidate Mitt Romney and fellow Republicans have accused Obama of shirking his duty as commander in chief by failing to negotiate with Congress on a way to avoid the cuts. Democrats counter that Republicans, who voted for the cuts, must consider higher taxes on the wealthy as part of an alternative to the reductions.
Graham suggested that Obama call Sen. John McCain, the top Republican on the Armed Services Committee and the 2008 presidential nominee, to work out a compromise.
