The White House today issued extensive reviews covering all 50 U.S. states on the impact of the $85 billion federal budget sequestration slated to go into effect this Friday if Congress does not act to prevent it. In the case of Virginia, a seven-page, single-spaced report dealt with impacts that will be felt this year, alone, on everything from child care services and domestic safety to national defense.
Immediate impacts in Virginia, in terms of funding cuts, will be felt in the following areas, according to the report: teachers and schools, work study jobs, Head Start, protections for clean air and clean water, military readiness, law enforcement and public safety funds for crime prevention and prosecution, job search assistance for help those in Virginia find employment and training, child care, vaccines for children, public health, STOP violence against women program, nutrition assistance for seniors.
National impacts, according to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) cited in the report, will require an annual reduction of roughly five percent of non-defense programs and roughly eight percent for defense programs. However, it is noted, given that the cuts must be achieved over only seven months instead of 12, the effective percentage reductions will be approximately nine percent for non-defense programs and 13 percent for defense programs, assuring that “these large and arbitrary cuts will have severe impacts across the government,” the report states.
