DoD Prepares for Possible Shutdown

DoD Prepares for Possible Shutdown as Congress Wrestles with Budget
Stars and Stripes
Travis J. Tritten
September 24, 2015

WASHINGTON -- The Defense Department was preparing this week for a possible shutdown with just days left for Congress to solve an entrenched federal budget impasse.

Pentagon spokesman Peter Cook said Tuesday that hope remains that lawmakers will strike a deal to fund the government when the fiscal year ends Sept. 30 and insisted the situation was not yet dire enough to warn defense employees of the potential fallout.

On Capitol Hill, Republicans in the Senate were set to float a short-term budget Thursday that could fund the government until December, but its future remained uncertain as the GOP battles Democrats over Planned Parenthood.

The government will be left in the lurch without a new budget at the end of the month and some services may be suspended. The last shutdown in 2013 was caused by congressional fights over defunding Obamacare and temporarily sent home more than 800,000 federal workers without pay -- half of those DoD civilians.

“We’re not at that stage right now that we need to be alarming or concerning employees with it," Cook said. "We still believe that there’s time to reach a resolution, but we have to do prudent planning, and the comptroller has been doing that.”
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