Analysts awaiting the White House’s one-week delayed comprehensive report on sequestration were relieved Friday afternoon. Despite fears it would take hours to review and ruin weekend plans, it included little that hadn’t already been revealed, simply offering an agency by agency breakdown of what budget figures agencies stand to lose if sequestration goes into effect Jan. 2.
The White House report was required based on a Congressional bill passed this summer and signed into law by President Obama. Despite the required deadline of 30 days, the White House was more than a week late in its release, offering the excuse that never seemed to work with my college term paper assignments that it just couldn’t be done any sooner.
Reading the headlines you might think sequestration falls only on the shoulders of the defense industry, but federal programs from Medicare to the Department of Education are impacted. The defense industry and military programs do face the bulk of the programs, shouldering more than half of the cuts. Under sequestration discretionary defense programs will see a 10 percent cut, and nondiscretionary programs will see a 9.4 percent cut to the budget next year. Non-defense programs face an 8.2 percent reduction. Military personnel accounts and the Veterans Administration are exempted.
Rather than offering plans for the implementation of cuts, or giving agencies guidance on how to prepare, the report was more of an ominous warning, a further threat to Congress to come to an agreement to prevent sequestration.
“The report leaves no question that the sequestration would be deeply destructive to national security, domestic investments, and core government functions,” the White House’s budget office said.
Sequestration mandated that every ‘program, project, activity and account’ be cut by an equal amount. While the White House report offers figures on program cuts, it fails to address how the cuts will play out on the project, activity and account level – that information is especially important to the agencies affected, because the definition of ‘project,’ ‘account,’ and ‘activity’ aren’t exactly spelled out in policy. It appears agencies will have to use their own discretion in determining what requires the peanut butter spread cuts, and how to implement them.
Analysts note that in the case of defense cuts, essential services that fulfill an immediate need to the warfighter will be saved, whatever budget wrangling is required. Other services, such as consulting, and procurement, however, may face tough times, especially in the 2013 budget cycle.
Here’s a breakdown of some of the agency budget cuts:
- NASA would be cut $1.3 billion
- Defense procurement would be cut by $15.3 billion
- Military aid to Afghanistan would be cut by $1.4 billion
- The Department of Homeland Security would be cut by $4.1 billion
- Embassy security would be cut by $129 million
- Federal Aviation Administration would be cut by $1 billion
