"The budget crisis manufactured by Congressional Republicans will never succeed at halting health care reform, but it has already caused long-lasting harm. It will preserve the deeply damaging spending cuts, known as the sequester, that are costing jobs and hurting the lives of millions." "That means the country will be stuck with the sequester-level cuts for the foreseeable future. It means more than 57,000 students will not get their Head Start seats back, and 140,000 low-income families who lost their federal housing assistance will be stuck in unaffordable or substandard homes. Thousands of scientists have been laid off and vital medical research projects have stalled. More than 85 chief Federal District Court judges signed a letter last month saying their cuts have been so deep that public safety is now at risk. A continued sequester will force unnecessary and damaging furloughs of all F.B.I. employees, and of 650,000 civilian employees of the Defense Department. And it means the economy will continue to sputter. The Congressional Budget Office estimated that ending the sequester could create up to 1.6 million jobs. The worst thing about governing by a stopgap measure, however, is that it eliminates real debates about priorities, new investments or tax reform, which are impossible when the threat of a shutdown is constantly looming. Every day that lawmakers argue about preventing a government shutdown is a day they are not discussing what government should be doing for the country’s benefit."
Posted on: Mon, 30 Sep 2013 19:11:04 +0000
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