Christinia Crippes, The Hawk Eye, Burlington, Iowa –
There is bipartisan consensus among Iowa’s federal delegation that the across-the-board budget cuts expected to happen at the end of the year should not go into effect.
The lawmakers, though, have different reasons for opposing the cuts that would impact domestic and defense spending equally.
U.S. Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, released a report this week in his Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee detailing the impact of the cuts on domestic spending. U.S. Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, however, said he could back a U.S. House measure that would tilt the cuts to domestic funds in order to protect the nation’s military.
U.S. Rep. Dave Loebsack, D-2nd District, is an equal-opportunity opponent of the cuts, believing them all to be arbitrary and unguided.
“These automatic, arbitrary cuts were created as a gimmick by politicians kicking the can down that road,” Loebsack said in a statement. “The effects of these unguided cuts will undermine our economic recovery, result in job losses, hurt our national security and harm our local communities.”
Harkin’s report, for example, shows the funding cuts would include a loss of $22 million in federal funds in Iowa for just three education programs, for poorer schools, special education and early childhood education. Those cuts would result in at least 260 jobs lost in Iowa.
“Sequestration does not have to happen. We need to put ideology aside. We need to come together to produce a balanced agreement, one that has both spending cuts and revenue increases that will reduce the deficit, avoid sequestration and protect federal investments that are critical to the middle class in this country,” Harkin said during a conference call with reporters Thursday.
Sequestration is the term lawmakers use for the across-the-board cuts that would be enacted because the committee that sought to find ways to reduce the deficit in a more nuanced way could not reach an agreement. That lack of an agreement triggers these automatic cuts called sequestration.
Harkin said he also is concerned about the across-the-board cuts in defense, but focused on the domestic spending cuts because others had raised concerns about the military.
“I don’t think sequestration is a good answer for anything, military or non-defense, either one,” Harkin said. “The reason we were focusing on the non-defense … is because the defense establishment and the contractors out there have been out there whipping up this storm about all the people that are going to be laid off in the defense industry if we have sequestration in the military.”
Count Grassley among those who have heard and echoed the concerns of the defense industry and its contractors. He said he doesn’t believe a single Republican is saying money can’t be saved in the military, but there already have been between $400 billion and $500 billion in savings and the $50 billion per year for sequestration is too much.
“This is where the Joint Chiefs of Staff is telling Congress that we’re going to have a hollow military, and you won’t even have a Marine Corps that can carry out its responsibilities,” Grassley said during a conference call Wednesday. “We better be pursuing at least what the House is about to do or has done, and get something on the table.”
Illinois U.S. Rep. Bobby Schilling, R-17th District, voted in favor of the House measure that would reduce the impact on defense spending. Loebsack voted against that proposal.
Schilling also led an effort to pass a bipartisan bill in the House called the Sequestration Transparency Act that would “ensure those involved in our national security, men and women in uniform, and community leaders throughout the country are fully informed of the risks of sequestration.”
Grassley said it should be important for the president to act, as defense contractors will have to send notice of a major layoff 60 to 90 days before it occurs, and 60 days before Jan. 1, 2013, would be just days before the presidential election.
“Why would the president want hundreds of thousands of notices going out to the defense contractors and their suppliers just before election, because he didn’t make a decision on adjusting sequestration, so it didn’t fall so heavily on defense?” Grassley said. “It seems to me it’s going to negatively effect the campaign for the president of the United States, who happens to be commander-in-chief.”
Tilting the cuts on domestic spending are just the sort of thing that caused Harkin to raise concerns about the domestic programs. But all the lawmakers agree there’s a need to reduce the deficit and a possibility for targeted cuts, on domestic and defense sides.
“I’ve repeatedly called on Congress to work every day until this and the many other pressing issues facing Iowans are addressed,” Loebsack said. “I will continue to push Washington to do the right thing and to get to work on a bipartisan agreement to reduce the deficit, boost our economy, create jobs and stop these arbitrary cuts.”
Loebsack, Harkin and Grassley all voted against the debt deal that included the sequestration cuts if the deficit committee did not reach an agreement. Schilling supported the proposal.
