The budget cuts outlined over the next nine years in the sequester are scheduled to start in two days. News channels have been busy with one analyst after another explaining how the sequestration will work and what the effect will be for this nation. A big picture has been painted. What Moms and Dads want to know is the small picture. What will the noticeable daily impact on the average American family be? Here are eight areas that will affect the average family.
First off, the direct financial impact of those looking at furloughs. No matter how you look at it 22 days of lost wages is substantial to many families. The ripple will be felt by businesses supported by federal workers, for example the oil change place just outside the base, the fast food lunch destination near a federal building or the popular coffee stop for teachers.
Head Start programs are looking at a $406 million cut. This will remove 70,000 children from the program designed to promote school readiness for preschool children of low income families. This is not the only educational program on the chop block. Special education programs are looking at an $840 million cut. Smaller programs due to reduced funding will put teacher's jobs at risk; the White house estimates nearly 10,000.
Air travel will become more time consuming. The TSA's airport security budget will slash $323 million resulting in longer check-in and security lines. Air traffic controllers will see a 10 percent decrease in numbers. This will equate to longer waits and inevitable delays.
Those areas subject to flooding, tornado, hurricanes or other disasters will experience a slower response from FEMA. Disaster areas already complain about slow response from the agency. FEMA is being cut by $375 million during sequestration. The trickle down effect could be felt by the local and state firefighting staff which receives funding grants.
The FDA is juggling a $318 million budget cut. Being the FDA is not equipment heavy; the majority of cuts will be in personnel. This means 1,000 food inspectors will be laid off. This presents the question of possible increased risk of food-borne illnesses. Drug approvals for new medications will take longer.
The FBI is looking at a $480 million budget cut. Prison funding is being cut by $355 million. This will result in early release for prisoners and more plea bargains to get through case loads. Agents and support staff will look at furloughs. Reducing manpower is reduced manpower.
Medical research will take a big hit as the National Institute of Health will lose $1.6 billion in funding. In December the NIH cut 10% off its grants resulting in the loss of 430,000 jobs. There are no furloughs in medical research. Lost funding results in a "lights out" for labs, the research, and the technical staff employed. Experimental treatments will be substantially cut. Hospital beds for clinical trials cost money. The Center for Disease Control will lose $323 million. This will be absorbed by the loss of thousands of disease detectives as well as cuts in funding to states for vaccines, health screenings and flu shots.
The last area your family could see the effects are in your vacation plans. The National Parks Service is cutting $110 million. That means reduced rangers, reduced services and hours, and some parks will be closed. This may not seem all that devastating at first glance but it bounces back to the first area listed. Many small businesses survive off the tourist industry. If the lively hood of a town is based upon the draw of the national park and that park closes, that micro economy suffers.
The truth is the government is big. The cuts outlined will not shrink the government. A lot of federal agencies fund state and local chapters. These budget cuts will be felt on the state and local level. Your job may not be in direct jeopardy with the sequester but you depend upon the people whose jobs are.
Photo source: The Patriotic Perspective
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Comments: 28
And then, for good measure, there are those "recess appointments" THAT HE IS CURRENTLY BEING PROSECUTED FOR. Further, he's going to LOSE those Lawsuits.
And, for even more fun than you should be allowed to have, we can discuss all of the money-laundering "green" Companies he paid his henchmen to create and then were BAILED from. Even the charlatan-in-Chief cannot get away from HIS debts, after all. He had to repay them SOMEHOW...
But then, Leftist liars already know that.
So, again, what makes him "king" instead of President. (My guess is the inability of many conservatives to acknowledge a black president.)
King Obama!!
They never seem to argue about actual facts, but rather about a mischaracterization of those facts. For example, when it comes to Obama right wingers do not criticize him directly as president, but rather they exaggerate in regards to him and then criticize their own exaggeration. The latest manifestation of this, apparently, is the penchant for referring to him as "King Obama". I'm not sure what memo went around promoting this tactic, or if they all heard it on Limbaugh or O'Reilly broadcasts, but they all seem to be suddenly doing this. Of course, it is meaningless. Obama has done nothing that could realistically be used to infer that he has assumed the pose of a monarch. He has grabbed no powers that did not come with the office of president, he has assumed no titles, his portrait has not appeared on the money, he wears no crown. But rather than construct a meaningful argument contending his presidency is not working out well, they simply refer to him as "King Obama" as though this meant something.
It is similar to their tactic of referring to any progressive defense of the administration as some kind of Obama worship. I have never heard any progressive or liberal say anything about Obama being a god, being someone to worship, being infallible, being saintly, being deified in any way. But I have read lots of conservatives referring to Obama as "your god" when arguing with progressives about him.
Part of the problem is that conservatives seem to suffer from binary thinking. They demonstrate an inability to perceive more than two sides to an issue, and in their limited imagination those two sides must be diametrically opposed. So when they make outrageous claims that Obama is a fascist, communist, socialist, Muslim terrorist, foreign-born, yadda yadda yadda and liberals point out the many contradictions and errors inherent in their claims, they interpret this to mean that liberals see Obama as the exact opposite of what they say: i.e. as some perfect, godlike being.
It is as though if a conservative said that the weather was too hot and a liberal disagreed with them they would take that to mean that the liberal thought it was freezing. There is no happy medium in their world: on or off, up or down, in or out, black or white, with us or with the terrorists.
What they miss in all of this is the many nuances that make life, and politics, and religion, and science, and everything what they are.
Obama is not the anti-Christ, he is not Satan himself, he is not Hitler, he is not a foreign-born usurper, he is not a Muslim nor a terrorist and neither is he a king. But all of that does not mean that he the Messiah or even a perfect president.
And no one on the left is claiming that he is.
This concludes today's lesson in economics. :)
Haahahaa!!! No, "teach," it is a cut in the increase of spending. This concludes today's real Lesson in Economics.
FAIL. Now go to the back of the Class and siddown.
;]
Sandy: Yeah, FEMA really came through.
Katrina: All Bush's Fault.
In fact, the response to Hurricane Katrina was by far the largest--and fastest-rescue effort in U.S. history, with nearly 100,000 emergency personnel arriving on the scene within three days of the storm's landfall.
This was set up so both parties would be out some of their pet funding. It was set up so someone would look at the situation and try and cut spending and bring out of control spending under control. The amount that is being cut is nothing and the fear mongering in Washington will continue.
Obama is doing what he does best.
Lie
Was it "Playing chicken?" - Yep
Did Obama sign it into law and then come back to say criminals would be let loose on the streets? - Yep!