Video: Defense contractors confirm layoffs

>>> there could be serious affects of $500 billion in defense budget cuts mandated by congress just before election day . politico reports major defense contractors will send tends of thousands layoff warnings among those confirming the warnings, lockheed martin , the world's biggest defense contractor by the way. joining me is philip ewing. thank you for joining us.

>> thanks for having me.

>> let's talk about this warning. is this gamesmanship? is this a true threat that people could be without a job, and we certainly know that is not needed in this country rights befo right before the election?

>> i think it's a little of all of the above. there's a big standoff in washington today over this skwauld sequester happening on november of next year. it's the defense industry and pentagon and defense advocates said it will be a disaster if it takes effect, because as many as 2 million people could lose their jobs. the defense industry is trying to jump start the congressional process by threatening to send out these layoff notices. they're banking that lawmakers don't want them to go out so soon before the election that they can take action before then to stop it from happening.

>> what's been the response on both sides of the aisle regarding this threat?

>> well, republicans and democrats have been blaming each other for the standoff for months now. despite this threat of escalation by the defense industry , if there's no action between now and the election, not a lot of people in washington expect it to be resolved before the election. this is something that congress most likely will have to resolve when it comes back from the so-called lame duck session between the election and the end of the year and the next congress. or even onto the next congress in 2013 . so there's a lot of heated rhetoric. there's a lot of strong words being exchanged, but not very many expect a lot of action in the near term here.

>> let me ask you, though. these automatic cuts is not new. we knew this was imminent, it was supposed to be anyway. why now are we hearing about the defense contractors saying they might cut these jobs?

>> because there's a limited window of time when congress is in session this month and briefly into october before they leave again to campaign once more before the election day . there's a limited amount of time for them to act before the election, which is what the defense industry and a lot of defense advocates want. the idea is to turn up the heat as much as possible to get a deal as soon as possible.

>> philip, thank you very much. we greatly appreciate you and your report. we'll be talking more about this. thank you.

Source: http://video.msnbc.msn.com/newsnation/48990767/

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