Stop America’s economic pain: Tell Congress to end sequestration

More than 60,000 children without preschool. Veterans without critical healthcare. Four million women without access to prenatal and family planning services. More than a thousand fewer police on the streets. These are just a handful of the devastating consequences if Congress doesn’t come to a budget agreement before sequestration returns October 1.

How did we get here…again? Let’s back up.

In 2011, Congress passed a law that cut federal spending by nearly $1 trillion dollars and said that if lawmakers couldn’t agree on a “grand bargain” to reduce our deficit by a total of $4 trillion, another $1 trillion in automatic, arbitrary and across the board budget cuts would take effect in 2013. Up first on the chopping block? Nondefense discretionary programs—those programs ranging from education and job training, to housing and science, to natural resources and veterans services, to public health, safety and security. Essentially, everything that’s not defense-related. Despite the fact that experts across the political spectrum agree these programs aren’t a driving factor behind our nation’s mid- and long-term fiscal challenges, they’ve been cut dramatically and disproportionately in recent years.

In fact, current non-defense discretionary funding is the lowest level on record dating back to the Eisenhower administration, relative to the size of the economy.

And not shockingly, Congress couldn’t agree—and still, apparently, can’t. Though the “Murray-Ryan” deal provided two years of partial sequestration relief, that deal expires in fiscal year 2016. In appropriations bills now being written to the sequestered spending caps, we are seeing the difficult tradeoffs necessitated by woefully inadequate and historically low levels of spending after years of deficit reduction.

That’s why more than 2,500 national, state and local organizations are calling on Congress to avoid the impending fiscal crisis and end sequestration. These organizations have come together to say, Raise the Spending Caps. Enough is enough. We see the speeding train coming down the track and we’re not doing nearly enough to stop it.

Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle have expressed support for relieving sequestration, which Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) once compared to “taking a meat ax to our government.” In June, Sen. John McCain, Republican of Arizona, urged congressional leaders “to come together and repeal sequestration.”

Why should we Raise the Caps? Reversing sequestration spending caps could create as many as 1.4 million jobs over the next two years, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) reports. According to CBO projections, raising the caps could mean as many as 800,000 jobs in 2016, and 600,000 jobs in 2017.

Relief from these cuts would also cause the gross domestic product to grow by as much as 0.6 percent in 2016 and as much as 0.4 percent in 2017. According to CBO, those ceilings would lead to increased government spending, which in turn would lead to an increase in economic output and higher employment.

But just as important as job creation or growing the economy, we need to stop the pain being felt by Americans across the country due to austerity. Elementary and secondary education, housing, and workforce training programs are unable to meet needs. Scientific discovery has been hindered and public health preparedness and response has been weakened. Maintenance of air traffic control, weather systems, and National Parks has been deferred. Federal justice programs haven’t adequately supported states and localities in meeting needs of law enforcement and crime victims. Programs designed to aid foreign victims of war and hunger are falling short, compromising our ability to address emergencies around the world.

There is bipartisan agreement that sequestration is bad policy and ultimately hurts our nation. It’s time to end the era of austerity.

Holubowich is co-chair of NDD United.