Kansas is a high-risk state when it comes to Friday’s expected across-the-board cuts. That’s because proportionately, Kansas depends more on federal funds than the bulk of its peers. Federal funds comprise almost 33 percent of the Kansas budget, putting us 35th among other states. SEQUESTRATION first got on the table because the idea was so bad that it would force Congress to construct a workable budget. In the summer of 2011, House Republicans refused to raise the debt limit without significant debt reduction. In response, the Budget Control Act of 2011 allowed the debt ceiling to rise in return for $1.2 trillion in cuts devised by a congressional super committee. If the super committee failed to agree on which cuts to make, then both domestic and defense cuts for the next 10 years would be enacted. DEMOCRATS and Republicans remain far apart on how to stave off the disaster. Democrats want a 50-50 mix of spending cuts and tax increases to right the budget. Republicans insist on cuts alone, singling out Medicaid, food stamps and children’s health insurance as the best targets.
Nationwide, states will see about 18 percent of their budgets cut through the sequestration.
The projected savings of the cuts is $1 trillion over the next 10 years. For 2013, savings is expected to be $85 billion. The downside is a projected loss of 800,000 jobs making for a 9 percent unemployment rate on top of a decline of 0.5 percent of economic activity — in essence another recession.
States like Kansas that are banking on increased activity due to widespread tax cuts will be especially hard hit because those hoped-for windfalls will have had the wind taken out of their sails by the federal fallout.
The state, for example, will now be expected to pick up the tab for federal cuts to education and nutrition programs, as well as public housing subsidies, drug enforcement, highway construction and agricultural programs.
An estimated 300 fewer leases for oil and gas drilling will be the result of cuts to the Department of Interior. Meat and poultry plants can expect fewer inspections, delaying necessary deadlines and putting some in the industry at risk.
Kansas can expect to see a 6 percent reduction in federal grants, a 6.3 percent reduction in federally based wages and salaries, and a 5.1 percent reduction in wages and salaries related to our country’s national defense.
In education alone, the cuts will affect the funding of everything from our SAFE BASE after-school program, which is funded through a 21st Century Community Learning Center grant, to Title I learning programs that help provide special education teachers, to the community college’s adult basic and literacy education grants, to name but a few.
And so here we are.
For every dollar cut to an after-school program, for example, another is made to a military base. The real harm is that by law the cuts are unilateral. There’s no discretion allowed. Good and bad programs alike will see a 10 percent reduction in funding.
Paychecks beginning March 7 will reflect a 9.4 percent reduction. By April 6, the Department of Defense will begin issuing layoffs and furloughs.
The question is not whether we can weather the cuts. We all bear scars from the damage of the 2008 recession.
The question is whether as a country this brinkmanship is how we should manage our affairs. Write your members of Congress today. Demand responsible government.
— Susan Lynn
