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The White House today released examples of what the Obama Administration says will happen if $85 billion in automatic budget cuts are allowed to go into effect on March 1, arguing the domestic spending cuts in the "sequester" would "threaten thousands of jobs and the economic security of the middle class."
In a fact sheet given to reporters, the Obama White House argues there would be damaging across the board cuts to education, small business, food safety and more ... .
‘‘Budget Control Act of 2011’’
CBO ESTIMATES.—As soon as practicable after Congress completes action on any discretionary appropriation, CBO, after consultation with the Committees on the Budget of the House of Representatives and the Senate, shall provide OMB with an estimate of the amount of discretionary new budget authority and outlays for the current year, if any, and the budget year provided by that legislation.
OMB ESTIMATES AND EXPLANATION OF DIFFERENCES.—Not later than 7 calendar days … after the date of enactment of any discretionary appropriation, OMB shall transmit a report to the House of Representatives and to the Senate containing the CBO estimate of that legislation, an OMB estimate of the amount of discretionary new budget authority and outlays for the current year, if any, and the budget year provided by that legislation, and an explanation of any difference between the estimates.
(A) The term ‘nonsecurity category’ means all discretionary appropriations not included in the security category defined in subparagraph (B).
(B) The term ‘security category’ includes discretionary appropriations associated with agency budgets for the Department of Defense, the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of Veterans Affairs, the National Nuclear Security Administration, the intelligence community management account (95–0401–0–1–054), and all budget accounts in budget function 150 (international affairs).
‘‘with respect to fiscal year 2013— ‘‘(A) for the security category, $686,000,000,000 in new budget authority; and ‘‘(B) for the nonsecurity category, $361,000,000,000 in new budget authority;
the sequester cuts the agencies' "budget authority" by about $85 billion between March 1 and Sept. 30,
The government spent $3.538 trillion in the fiscal year that ended in September 2012. So $85 billion is 2.4% of the federal budget. … Depending on the agency, cuts are going to be in the ballpark of 5% and 13%, according to various estimates from government officials.
Originally posted by kudegras
reply to post by ownbestenemy
Look's as though you have to ride the train or get run over by it. BTW this is a world issue as the US is going to bring the rest of the world down with it. It doesn't matter where you are, if the most powerful country in the world comes to an economic collapse as many people believe, we will all feel the effects but none more than the average American citizen.
You would have to be naive to not believe that something extraordinarily sinister is approaching.
When the sequester hits on March 1, nothing much happens. The cuts take effect, but agencies have been expecting them for months and are prepared to slow down their pace of outlays. The legislation creating the sequester back in 2011 deliberately minimized the amount of discretion that agency managers have over how to allocate cuts. But even an across-the-board cut applied to every program doesn’t imply an exact equal reduction in the amount of spending each and every day or even week. For a few weeks, any halfway competent agency is going to be able to keep things running more or less as they have been recently. Big shortfalls in services would only show up later down the road.
On March 27 the Continuing Resolution that funds the overall discretionary operations of the federal government runs out.
When that happens, it’s lights out—quite literally.
...
A government shutdown’s something we haven’t seen since Jan. 6, 1996, when then-President Bill Clinton and then-Speaker Newt Gingrich patched up their budget disagreements.
...
The bad news is that this means the odds of a government shutdown are pretty high. The good news is that the tough negotiations that’ll be needed to either avert or else end a government shutdown provide ample opportunity to resolve the problems associated with the sequester.
Originally posted by iwan2ski
However, it doesn't justify Obama giving Biden and Congress a pay increase. I say lead by example!
Originally posted by Feltrick
reply to post by jdub297
I would just like to add to your post that the grave furlough of gov't employees that is being talked about isn't as grave as it's made out to be. Basically, the employees will get a 20% pay cut by only working and being paid for 4 days vice 5. So, some will get 3 day weekends, others will get another unpaid day off.
Understand that for some, if not most, a 20% pay cut will hurt but they're not being laid off or fired.
My hope is that most of America stops believing all of the hype over this sequestration. We're not talking about Greek austerity measures, we're talking about an 85 million dollar cut to a 3.3 trillion dollar budget.
Luckily though, this doesn't affect the pay checks of our glorious elected officials...so at least there's a silver lining to this made up crisis.
For example: with a 20% decrease in my pay, I will have to make cuts in my budget. So I will probably have to dump my Verizon triple play plan which costs me $150 a month, also I might have to discontinue both my daughters cell phone plans which cost me another $130 a month. Now imagine if another 50,000 DoD employees do the same. That means Verizon would lose alot of customers and start laying off some of thier employees to stay a float. Which then, trickles down to every to other buisness as they start losing customers and then lay off their employees. Then so on and so forth....
Originally posted by lynxpilot
My experience from sweeping cuts to federal budgets, albeit on a regional scale, was that the boss still expected the work to get done. Sending folks home without pay for one day a week is just stealing 20% of the employees' pay. I would hope that employees make a concerted effort to make sure they only do 80% of their job and not a single percent more.
The fact that the Executive and Legislative branches aren't getting pay cuts, especially under the premise that "oh dear, we can't have a pay cut because we'd have to make a law to do it", is frankly insulting, especially to federal employees who actually work.
Originally posted by Feltrick
reply to post by jdub297
I would just like to add to your post that the grave furlough of gov't employees that is being talked about isn't as grave as it's made out to be. Basically, the employees will get a 20% pay cut by only working and being paid for 4 days vice 5. So, some will get 3 day weekends, others will get another unpaid day off.
Understand that for some, if not most, a 20% pay cut will hurt but they're not being laid off or fired.