Sequestration Blues
U.S. Workers Grounded by Deep Cuts
By MICHAEL D. SHEAR and RON NIXON, NYT
WASHINGTON — Geological visits to monitor volcanoes in Alaska have been scaled back. The defense secretary is traveling to Afghanistan two times a year instead of the usual four. For the first time in nearly three decades, NASA pulled out of the National Space Symposium, in Colorado Springs, even though representatives from France, Germany and China all made the trip.
Five months after gridlock in Washington triggered the deep spending cuts known as sequestration, much of the United States government is grounded.
Most government travel budgets have been cut this year by 30 percent, the result of an administration directive forcing managers to make difficult policy decisions about whom to send, where to send them and for how long. The result, agency officials say, is a government that cannot conduct essential business and is embarrassing itself abroad.
“We talk about being a leader in space exploration,” said Elliot H. Pulham, the chief executive of the Space Foundation, which sponsored the NASA-free symposium in Colorado. “But it’s hard to be a leader if you don’t show up.”
(More here.)
By MICHAEL D. SHEAR and RON NIXON, NYT
WASHINGTON — Geological visits to monitor volcanoes in Alaska have been scaled back. The defense secretary is traveling to Afghanistan two times a year instead of the usual four. For the first time in nearly three decades, NASA pulled out of the National Space Symposium, in Colorado Springs, even though representatives from France, Germany and China all made the trip.
Five months after gridlock in Washington triggered the deep spending cuts known as sequestration, much of the United States government is grounded.
Most government travel budgets have been cut this year by 30 percent, the result of an administration directive forcing managers to make difficult policy decisions about whom to send, where to send them and for how long. The result, agency officials say, is a government that cannot conduct essential business and is embarrassing itself abroad.
“We talk about being a leader in space exploration,” said Elliot H. Pulham, the chief executive of the Space Foundation, which sponsored the NASA-free symposium in Colorado. “But it’s hard to be a leader if you don’t show up.”
(More here.)
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