Sequester Will Harm Missourians
by Jasmin Maurer, PEP Director
Yesterday, I came across a Washington Post article, as I’m sure did many of you. The article laid out, state by state, the impact of sequester as released by the White House.
It’s a fairly grim picture impacting students, teachers, healthcare workers, women, children, and just about anyone else you could think of. This includes Department of Defense employees.
We’ve all heard by now that sequester was never meant to go through. It cuts programs without thought to the human impact. On the social programming side, this is devastating. $127,000 lost for the STOP Violence Against Women Program and 2,500 fewer children receiving vaccines will be felt here in Missouri.
The 8,000 civilian employees of the Department of Defense in the state of Missouri in danger of being furloughed will also be felt. The $758,000 in lost funding for job search assistance won’t help either.
This reality of what sequester will look like keeps bringing me to Boeing’s threats of lay offs in response to the sequester. They planned to cut 10 percent of their management in Hazelwood by the end of 2012 in order to save $1.6 billion through 2015.
This is the same company whose CEO, James McNerney, brought home $22.96 million in total compensation in the year 2011. His salary alone is $1.93 million. And yet, the company’s solution to impending budget cuts was layoffs.
Sequester has set it up so that everyday people will have to suffer to allow for continued corporate profits. The country is in a debt crisis, not because we’re providing healthcare for individuals who need and can’t afford it, but because corporate profits are growing to astronomical amounts.
Here at PEP, we advocate for a reduction in the Pentagon budget, but not at the expense of hardworking people. Not while defense contracting CEOs are bringing home $21.5 million, thanks in large part to contracts they receive from the DoD using taxpayer dollars.
Smart cuts are what we’d like to see, and I’m sure others would agree. Cuts that address the heart of the problem, corporate greed gotten out of hand. Like contracts for weapons systems that we don’t need. Or to nuclear programs that make our entire world less safe.
As we move forward in addressing the upcoming sequester, set to go into affect this Friday barring any revelations, I think it’s helpful to keep in mind what we’re fighting for here. For me, that’s people and their ability to live decently.
