Obama’s Labor Department is trying to spare the president the embarrassment of having hundreds of thousands of layoff notices arrive in the mail just before Election Day, including in the crucial swing state of Virginia. It issued a guidance yesterday to defense contractors that just happened to advise them not to send federally-required warnings to their employees that they could get pink slipped because Washington can’t get the budget under control.

At issue is a regulation called the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notice Act, which requires federal contractors, especially ones with Pentagon contracts, to send notices to their workers 60 days before their contract is expected to terminate. The point is to give the workers a heads up and time to get new employment or seek training.

That’s relevant because Congress is currently trying to prevent what’s been dubbed “sequestration,” a $110 billion budget cut, half coming from defense, that will take place on Jan. 2, 2013, if they cannot reach agreement on a deficit reduction package. Well, there is currently no agreement, sequestration is looming and both sidesare pointing fingers over this.

Well, 60 days before Jan. 2 is Nov. 2. Election Day this year falls on Nov. 6. The Aerospace Industries Association estimates that as many as 2.14 million jobs could be affected. That’s an awful lot of layoff warnings days before an election – and Republicans having doing their best to pin the blame on the White House.

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