On March 1st, barring Congress coming to a budget agreement, sequestering will take effect. The media keeps throwing that word around, but no one is sitting down and telling us just why we should be concerned. Or, if they are, then it is buried down in hyperlinks that lead to individual state data. I spent an hour digging through +The White House web site and all I could find was the national overview for middle class families.
+The Huffington Post managed to locate the fact sheets for the individual states, which included information for all social levels. They're at the bottom of this article. Like every other person in the country, I looked at my state first.
For the State of Virginia, there are obvious cuts and there are less obvious cuts. In military spending alone, we have 90,000 civilian layoffs directly from the DOD. That's one local revenue stream. Then, operations funding will be cut. Call me crazy, but doesn't that include the little things? Like the items picked up from local suppliers and then expensed? So, there's another local revenue stream gone. Finally, ship maintenance will be put on hold. Guess what? That's another local revenue stream - the Newport News Shipyard.
If the military cuts were hitting the entire state, it might be easier to absorb. However, a large number of bases are clustered near the Port of Norfolk. Off the top of my head, there is: Fort Eustis, Langley, NOB Norfolk, NAS Oceana.... Fort Eustis includes two subsidiary bases: Fort Story and Little Creek Amphibious. In short: that's Army, Navy and Air Force cuts all hitting a single local economy and killing local business revenue.
For an area that has just begun to recover from recent economic issues, this is devastating. And that's without taking into account all of the other services and jobs that will be cut by this travesty. One of the services cut would be the very same assistance that would help these displaced workers find new jobs!
Let's take a look at some other line items and compare states....
Because I have friends in each, I picked Florida and Michigan to look at.
Florida vaccinates 7,450 fewer children for things like measles, mumps, and rubella. Wait.... Don't those kids need these vaccines to go to school? Yes, they do. So, we will have to worry about their lack of an education. Or not, since Florida schools are also losing funding - for 95,000 students. That is not a typo. Ninety-five thousand children. In one state.
By comparison, Virginia is losing vaccination for 3,530 children and Michigan for 4,400 children. Virginia is losing funding to teach 14,000 children. Michigan will need to scramble to find the funds to educate 25,000 children. Virginia childcare cuts will hit 400 children, Florida will lose 1,600 children, and Michigan will lose funding for 900.
Oh dear....
How can we stop this?
Well, how about we knock 600,000 people off of WIC programs nationwide? Or make it so that 424,000 people in the USA don't find out if they have HIV/AIDS? We could cut 2,100 food safety inspections and make the USDA have a two week layoff of all Inspection Service employees? We could eliminate 1,000 federal law enforcement agents and 7,000 Customs and Border Patrol employees? Would that help?
Oh, we're already doing that on top of everything else.
What is causing this?
Why is our legislature not able to reach an agreement? According to what I've been able to find, it looks like one simple little thing is bogging us down: the Democrats want to tax the rich. I thought they were supposed to be taxed, but it looks like the Republicans have a different opinion.
What is this onerous and highly controversial tax increase?
+The Wall Street Journal had a lovely infographic on the topic. Looking at it, someone that is making $260k a year would pay a little over $3,000 more in taxes for a total of $73,709. That leaves over $186,000 to feed the hypothetical family of four mentioned in the scenario. In case you missed it, that's roughly $46,500 per person in the household.
They're nearly impoverished! I mean, their net income is only almost five times the total gross (pre-tax) income of my household. What are we thinking, asking them to survive on so little?
Okay, maybe I'm over-reacting. Let's look at a different one. A married couple with four children. This looks promising. An income of $650,000. Wow. Taxes must take a big bite of that. Hm. After taxes, according to this, they currently have $475,325 or a little over $79,000 per person. So, the increase is huge, right? After the increase, it would drop to $453,717 or a little over $75,000 per person.
If my household had that budget per person, we'd each be able to have a fully paid, brand new car every year. We'd be able to eat, save, and still pay all our other bills, too. What are these people fighting about? Heck, what are they spending their money on? Just pass the blasted tax increases already!
+The Huffington Post managed to locate the fact sheets for the individual states, which included information for all social levels. They're at the bottom of this article. Like every other person in the country, I looked at my state first.
For the State of Virginia, there are obvious cuts and there are less obvious cuts. In military spending alone, we have 90,000 civilian layoffs directly from the DOD. That's one local revenue stream. Then, operations funding will be cut. Call me crazy, but doesn't that include the little things? Like the items picked up from local suppliers and then expensed? So, there's another local revenue stream gone. Finally, ship maintenance will be put on hold. Guess what? That's another local revenue stream - the Newport News Shipyard.
If the military cuts were hitting the entire state, it might be easier to absorb. However, a large number of bases are clustered near the Port of Norfolk. Off the top of my head, there is: Fort Eustis, Langley, NOB Norfolk, NAS Oceana.... Fort Eustis includes two subsidiary bases: Fort Story and Little Creek Amphibious. In short: that's Army, Navy and Air Force cuts all hitting a single local economy and killing local business revenue.
For an area that has just begun to recover from recent economic issues, this is devastating. And that's without taking into account all of the other services and jobs that will be cut by this travesty. One of the services cut would be the very same assistance that would help these displaced workers find new jobs!
Let's take a look at some other line items and compare states....
Because I have friends in each, I picked Florida and Michigan to look at.
Florida vaccinates 7,450 fewer children for things like measles, mumps, and rubella. Wait.... Don't those kids need these vaccines to go to school? Yes, they do. So, we will have to worry about their lack of an education. Or not, since Florida schools are also losing funding - for 95,000 students. That is not a typo. Ninety-five thousand children. In one state.
By comparison, Virginia is losing vaccination for 3,530 children and Michigan for 4,400 children. Virginia is losing funding to teach 14,000 children. Michigan will need to scramble to find the funds to educate 25,000 children. Virginia childcare cuts will hit 400 children, Florida will lose 1,600 children, and Michigan will lose funding for 900.
Oh dear....
How can we stop this?
Well, how about we knock 600,000 people off of WIC programs nationwide? Or make it so that 424,000 people in the USA don't find out if they have HIV/AIDS? We could cut 2,100 food safety inspections and make the USDA have a two week layoff of all Inspection Service employees? We could eliminate 1,000 federal law enforcement agents and 7,000 Customs and Border Patrol employees? Would that help?
Oh, we're already doing that on top of everything else.
What is causing this?
Why is our legislature not able to reach an agreement? According to what I've been able to find, it looks like one simple little thing is bogging us down: the Democrats want to tax the rich. I thought they were supposed to be taxed, but it looks like the Republicans have a different opinion.
What is this onerous and highly controversial tax increase?
+The Wall Street Journal had a lovely infographic on the topic. Looking at it, someone that is making $260k a year would pay a little over $3,000 more in taxes for a total of $73,709. That leaves over $186,000 to feed the hypothetical family of four mentioned in the scenario. In case you missed it, that's roughly $46,500 per person in the household.
They're nearly impoverished! I mean, their net income is only almost five times the total gross (pre-tax) income of my household. What are we thinking, asking them to survive on so little?
Okay, maybe I'm over-reacting. Let's look at a different one. A married couple with four children. This looks promising. An income of $650,000. Wow. Taxes must take a big bite of that. Hm. After taxes, according to this, they currently have $475,325 or a little over $79,000 per person. So, the increase is huge, right? After the increase, it would drop to $453,717 or a little over $75,000 per person.
If my household had that budget per person, we'd each be able to have a fully paid, brand new car every year. We'd be able to eat, save, and still pay all our other bills, too. What are these people fighting about? Heck, what are they spending their money on? Just pass the blasted tax increases already!
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