Congress squirms as a deadline aproaches
Pentagon Gets Attention, but Planned Cuts Range Far and Wide
By JENNIFER STEINHAUER, NYT
WASHINGTON — It is no secret here that come January, barring Congressional action, huge spending cuts will hit the Pentagon. Congressional Republicans, President Obama’s secretary of defense and military contractors have taken pains to denounce the planned reductions, which were scheduled as part of the resolution to the debt-ceiling crisis of last year.
But other government programs are facing equally large cuts, though they have received a scintilla of the attention and outrage that the planned Pentagon cuts have attracted.
From cancer research to farm inspectors to grants to cities and states and law enforcement agencies, nearly every sector of government would be affected by the planned $1.2 trillion in cuts, especially in the first year of the nine-year reductions.
While many mandatory programs, like Medicare, Social Security and others, are exempt or virtually untouched under the scheduled cuts, known as sequestration, roughly $321 billion would be cut from the “nondefense discretionary” category, which represents scores of government spending areas outside of the military.
(More here.)
By JENNIFER STEINHAUER, NYT
WASHINGTON — It is no secret here that come January, barring Congressional action, huge spending cuts will hit the Pentagon. Congressional Republicans, President Obama’s secretary of defense and military contractors have taken pains to denounce the planned reductions, which were scheduled as part of the resolution to the debt-ceiling crisis of last year.
But other government programs are facing equally large cuts, though they have received a scintilla of the attention and outrage that the planned Pentagon cuts have attracted.
From cancer research to farm inspectors to grants to cities and states and law enforcement agencies, nearly every sector of government would be affected by the planned $1.2 trillion in cuts, especially in the first year of the nine-year reductions.
While many mandatory programs, like Medicare, Social Security and others, are exempt or virtually untouched under the scheduled cuts, known as sequestration, roughly $321 billion would be cut from the “nondefense discretionary” category, which represents scores of government spending areas outside of the military.
(More here.)
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1 Comments:
Are the cuts actual reductions in spending or merely reductions in the rate of growth? Continuing on our current deduct increasing spending levels should make everyone squirm.
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