On the Saturday morning following Congress’s failure to pass a sequester stop gap measure, Obama signed documents mandating certain departmental budget cuts in Washington.
Talking with citizens of Eugene, it becomes evident that the majority have little to no concern as to the pending federal budget sequester. Many more don’t even know what it is!
The United States annual budget now approaching $ 20 trillion indicates that the mandated $80 billion budget cut for 2013 will barely reach the ledger’s bottom line.
The so called ‘sequester’ translates to a mere two to eight percent departmental budget cut across the board. Federal departments will feel far less pain than that endured by city, county and state employees over the past five years.
The nation’s poor will experience no cut in food stamps, Medicare, or public welfare. Federal employees may experience some hour cuts and furlough days, but not necessarily in Eugene, Lane County.
There may be a slight reduction in services at the Eugene Airport. And with possible cutbacks in airport security, it may take a few more minutes to make it through the baggage screening check points.
But this is speculative conjecture at this point, with weeks remaining prior to the final federal budget deadline.
Speaking to retired building contractor Ron Brown of Eugene, he’s a bit more concerned with the preservation of Social Security and Medicare entitlements then he is with airport services. Mr. Brown is willing to sacrifice a few government underwritten services in exchange for the preservation of senior entitlements.
The sequester report indicates that the majority of Americans will experience neither immediate, nor long term financial impact.
Some federal employee’s may see a handful of furlough days per month without the benefit of pay. But military wages and benefits, Medicare, and most senior and humanitarian care (poor) programs will remain fiscally intact.
While Obama exaggerates the broad implications of a fiscal pending doom, little written in the sequester dialog supports it!
In studying the proposed federal budget cuts, one finds that the bi-partisan sequester, voted through the full House in 2011 is welcomed by many law makers as a fiscal turn in the right direction.
Democrats and Republicans alike believe it time to reduce federal government operations cost, military spending and certain domestic programs. With war winding down on several fronts, weapons development, refitting and modernization of the military, as well as homeland security, will most likely be impacted by the fiscal sequester. And with these cuts come layoffs in the defense industrial complex and military auxiliary support civilian sector.
Many believe that the mandated budget cuts targeting unbridled federal spending comes at an appropriate time, and say, let the ax fall!
Putting the impact of the mandated budget cut into perspective is relatively simple. We’re talking two to eight cents on the dollar. Furthermore implementing departmental and program funding cuts will be gradual. As noted by NBC NEWS: The so called sequester, a White House coined buzz word, is fully or partially reversible by a Congressional vote prior to the federal fiscal deadline of March 27.
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