SEQUESTRATION BITES BACK.

By law, this January the Obama administration must cut defense spending by at least $50 billion. Defense contractors have warned that if these cuts occur on schedule, they will have to lay off more than one million employees, many of whom live in the swing state of Virginia. The Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) Act requires large employers to notify employees 60 days in advance of layoffs caused by a foreseeable event. That means defense contractors would have to tell many of their employees they are about to be unemployed on the Friday before President Obama is scheduled to appear on the ballot for reelection.

For some reason, Obama does not want this to happen. So, this past Monday, Obama’s Labor Department issued a guideline instructing defense contractors to ignore the law and not send layoff notices to their employees. Most defense contractors are expected to ignore Obama’s request. “The Labor Department doesn’t determine whether a company has failed to give the warn notices,” Kirkland and Ellis lawyer John Irving told The Hill. “Even the Labor Department has said, in advisory interpretations of the WARN Act, that when in doubt you are supposed to give notice.”

Since Obama can’t force private companies to break the law, his administration is trying to shift blame for the defense cuts to Republicans. “The root cause of the problem here is the Republican refusal to acknowledge that the top 2 percent have to pay their fair share,” White House Office of Management and Budget acting director Jeffrey Zients testified ....

Those damned unintended consequences again....