ESSAY TRES

Tyler Bivona

Dr. Kerr

EN 101-4

8 April 2013

2013 Budget Sequester and the Effects of it

            One of the biggest political headlines of late 2012 and early 2013 was the uncertainty surrounding an impending budget sequestration and its effects on the American public.  The causes were plain enough to see, a lack of funding in the federal budget that would force cuts from virtually every part of the government.  But the effects of these cuts are far more unclear.  The budget sequestration that went into effect in March of 2013 could result in a loss of nearly a million  jobs in 2013 and 2014, would force the government to cut a total of $1.2 trillion from the budget over the next ten years, and on a more local level, would cause massive spending cuts that would affect thousands of people in the state of Maryland.

The sequester is, as described by Matt Smith of CNN, “A series of automatic, across-the-board cuts to government agencies” (Smith).  These cuts were originally supposed to go into effect at the beginning of 2013, but they were put off until March by the American Taxpayer Relief Act of 2012 (Boles), which was passed in the early morning hours on January 1, 2013.  This bill stemmed from Congress’ attempt to avoid the fiscal cliff, which would have brought massive cuts to the government, leading the Department of Defense to have to prepare to notify “All 800,000 of its civilian employees that some of them could be forced into unpaid leave without a deal” (Weisman).  Since the extended deadline passed on March 1st, most of these cuts have gone into effect.

As a result of these cuts, the government has to cut a total of $1.2 trillion from the budgets for the next ten years (Smith).  These cuts are split “50-50 between defense and domestic discretionary spending” (Smith). Since half of these cuts are coming from defense, it creates a wave that can majorly disrupt the entire defense industry.  A total of $46 billion was cut from defense spending in 2013 alone, causing former Defense Secretary Leon Panetta to remark that the cuts would “Cut sharply into military readiness” (Smith) With these cuts comes a lack of money flow into the military industrial complex, so huge companies like Boeing, Lockheed-Martin, and other defense contractors have to furlough employees or even lay them off.  However, not just the defense industry would be hurt by these cuts. 

With these cuts would bring the potential for massive amounts of jobs lost.  According to the Bipartisan Policy Center, the sequester would cost the United States economy nearly one million jobs in fiscal years 2013 and 2014 (Akbas).  While this doesn’t mean that one million people will suddenly find themselves out of work, it does mean that the economy would create a million less jobs than it might otherwise have created if the sequester didn’t go into effect.  Again, this only serves to hurt recovery from the recession that America is still mired in by preventing people access to income, and it continues to hurt the government’s budget, as those million jobless people who might have gotten a job might have to resort to unemployment benefits to get by.

On a less national level, the sequester cuts would have a profound impact on nearly every state, including Maryland.  In the White House’s report on the effects of the sequester for the state of Maryland, these cuts were outlined in detail. Some of these cuts include a loss of $14.4 million in funding for primary and secondary education, and furloughs for nearly 46,000 civilian Department of Defense employees, which would “Reduce gross pay by around $353.7 million in total”(United States).  The $14.4 million in education cuts would put around 200 teachers and aides at risk of losing their jobs, as well as cutting funding to thirty schools in Maryland.  Not only would education be hit hard in Maryland, but other programs, such as environmental protections for clean air and water would lose funding.  The White House states that “Maryland would lose about $3.1 million in environmental funding to ensure clean water and air quality” (United States).  It certainly isn’t just Maryland that is affected by the sequester, every state in the union would suffer some form of funding cuts as a result of the sequester.

The sequester has been one of the most talked-about political issues for the past six months, and with good reason.  The sequester will negatively impact millions of Americans, and might even prove to hamper economic recovery from the recession.  With over a trillion dollars slated to be cut from the federal budgets for the next ten years, and a million jobs potentially being lost in the next two years alone, the sequester is a specter that continues to hang over the United States’ economic recovery.