Targeted federal governments cuts or the March 1st sequester
Posted By RichC on February 14, 2013
The coming government cuts, either by choice or sequester and their economic impact is bound to be felt by all of us. The President for his part Tuesday night in the State of the Union address offered a warning, but little that addressed the ominous across the board cuts coming on March 1st if nothing is done. As an advocate for a smaller federal government , cuts are necessary, but I also recognize that unmanaged instant cuts are not the best way to shrink Washington DC.
The pain will be felt most acutely by the military and those employed or planning to work for Uncle Sam directly. For the rest of us, I sense the immediate impact will be felt down the road as the economy will slow according to the CBO and as we begin to notice the missing or slowed government services. The Pentagon has already said that 800,000 civilian employees will see their hours cut by about 20% for the rest of the year and they will also lay off 46,000 temporary workers. Food safety inspectors will try to do their job with 600 fewer people. Weather forecast may become less accurate and the nation’s air traffic will most likely slow; there will be about 1200 fewer controllers to oversee U.S. airspace. We’ll all feel the pain of long delays when it comes to passports, taxes and social security paperwork, not to mention the difficulty for visitors when it comes to visas and tourism. Those wanting to visit the U.S. may just go elsewhere if entry becomes too difficult … of course that won’t impact illegals crossing at our southern border. The border patrol estimates that they will need to reduce their staff by 25%!
Research advocates have argued that cuts to the National Institutes of Health, which drive US medical research, will slash about $12.5 billion from research this year and reduce economic growth by up to $860 billion over nine years, hitting US competitiveness in science in the long run and triggering nearly half a million job losses between 2013 and 2016.
Despite political maneuvering by Republicans and the White House to find a solution to the so-called "sequester", there are no serious proposals to avoid the $1.2 trillion in automatic spending cuts that are expected to take effect on March 1. It might be a good time to put pressure on “all” of Washington DC … they need to come up with a better solution that the sequester.
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