{"id":14874,"date":"2013-02-25T19:31:11","date_gmt":"2013-02-25T19:31:11","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2013-02-26T02:04:48","modified_gmt":"2013-02-26T02:04:48","slug":"sequestration-and-california","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/calitics.com\/index.php\/2013\/02\/25\/sequestration-and-california\/","title":{"rendered":"Sequestration and California"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a>Federal budget fight puts thousands of jobs at risk<\/i><\/p>\n

by Brian Leubitz<\/p>\n

In case you haven’t heard (and if so, congrats on that), the federal government is busy trying to make California’s governance look smooth and easy.  The self-imposed reckless spending cuts across the board are scheduled to take effect on March 1, and right now a deal doesn’t look set to happen anytime soon. Sens. Coburn and McCaskill said as much<\/a> a few days ago. Kevin Drum outlines why a deal is unlikely<\/a> by simply outlining the possible outcomes:<\/p>\n

1) Eliminate the sequester entirely.<\/b> Zero chance of Republicans agreeing to this.
\n
2) Ditch the defense cuts, replace them with domestic cuts plus a tax increase.<\/b> Zero chance of Republicans agreeing to this.
\n
3) Ditch the defense cuts, double the domestic cuts.<\/b> Zero chance of Democrats agreeing to this.
\n
4) Ditch the defense cuts, keep the domestic cuts.<\/b> Approximately zero chance of Democrats agreeing to this.
\n
5) Kick the can down the road with some kind of small-ball deal.<\/b> Possible, I guess.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

There are, of course, some minor shades between these options, but the room for negotiating is slim indeed. While polls show a majority of Americans would blame the Republicans<\/a>, that doesn’t actually pay the bills and keep the lights on. While some argue that the cuts will weaken Republican resolve<\/a> on their hard-line tax position, it is still a dangerous game. How dangerous here at home?<\/p>\n

Well, the White House put out a report on how California will be hit by the cuts<\/a>, and it isn’t pretty. Here is a quick sampler:<\/p>\n

  • Education cuts: California would lose nearly $90million, putting over 1,200 teaching and support jobs at risk.<\/li>\n
  • Travel: Customs and homeland security resources would be drastically cut. Wait times at the bigger airports, like SFO and LAX could increase by over 90 minutes. <\/li>\n
  • Health: Several programs would take big cuts. Vaccines for children would lose over a million dollars, meaning 15,000 children wouldn’t be vaccinated. Substance abuse programs would lose $12.4 for treatment, closing off that option for 9,400 patients. And HIV testing would lose $2million, meaning almost 50,000 fewer tests.<\/li>\n

    Of course, that is just a smattering of the cuts, they also extend to job training and placement, child care, and environmental cuts. Yet there has been little sign of movement from the hard-line GOP caucus in the House, and the deadline is just a few days away.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    <\/a>Federal budget fight puts thousands of jobs at risk<\/i><\/p>\n

    by Brian Leubitz<\/p>\n

    In case you haven’t heard (and if so, congrats on that), the federal government is busy trying to make California’s governance look smooth and easy.  The self-imposed reckless spending cuts across the board are scheduled to take effect on March 1, and right now a deal doesn’t look set to happen anytime soon. Sens. Coburn and McCaskill said as much<\/a> a few days ago. Kevin Drum outlines why a deal is unlikely<\/a> by simply outlining the possible outcomes:<\/p>\n

    1) Eliminate the sequester entirely.<\/b> Zero chance of Republicans agreeing to this.
    \n
    2) Ditch the defense cuts, replace them with domestic cuts plus a tax increase.<\/b> Zero chance of Republicans agreeing to this.
    \n
    3) Ditch the defense cuts, double the domestic cuts.<\/b> Zero chance of Democrats agreeing to this.
    \n
    4) Ditch the defense cuts, keep the domestic cuts.<\/b> Approximately zero chance of Democrats agreeing to this.
    \n
    5) Kick the can down the road with some kind of small-ball deal.<\/b> Possible, I guess.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

    There are, of course, some minor shades between these options, but the room for negotiating is slim indeed. While polls show a majority of Americans would blame the Republicans<\/a>, that doesn’t actually pay the bills and keep the lights on. While some argue that the cuts will weaken Republican resolve<\/a> on their hard-line tax position, it is still a dangerous game. How dangerous here at home?<\/p>\n

    Well, the White House put out a report on how California will be hit by the cuts<\/a>, and it isn’t pretty. Here is a quick sampler:<\/p>\n

  • Education cuts: California would lose nearly $90million, putting over 1,200 teaching and support jobs at risk.<\/li>\n
  • Travel: Customs and homeland security resources would be drastically cut. Wait times at the bigger airports, like SFO and LAX could increase by over 90 minutes. <\/li>\n
  • Health: Several programs would take big cuts. Vaccines for children would lose over a million dollars, meaning 15,000 children wouldn’t be vaccinated. Substance abuse programs would lose $12.4 for treatment, closing off that option for 9,400 patients. And HIV testing would lose $2million, meaning almost 50,000 fewer tests.<\/li>\n

    Of course, that is just a smattering of the cuts, they also extend to job training and placement, child care, and environmental cuts. Yet there has been little sign of movement from the hard-line GOP caucus in the House, and the deadline is just a few days away.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[21],"tags":[5256],"class_list":["post-14874","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-21","tag-5256"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6Pvhz-3RU","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/calitics.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14874","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/calitics.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/calitics.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/calitics.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/calitics.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14874"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/calitics.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14874\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/calitics.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14874"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/calitics.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14874"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/calitics.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14874"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}