How the Sequester Will Harm Republican States
Besides the fact that the Sequestration Cuts will disproportionately effect Red States because they are more dependent upon Federal Govt spending (as pointed out by this article) is is also ironic that the Repub postion is that the cuts are “no big deal” because they are only 3% of the total 2013 Federal Govt budget”.
Let’s do the math:
Actual Cuts Required by 2012 Sequestration
That is 3% of the TOTAL budget but that total amount will be forced to be found in a SUB-TOTAL of that 100% in LESS THAN A YEAR..
SUB-TOTAL = Non-discretionary defense and Defense = ~ 33% of the total budget
LESS THAN A YEAR = ~ 7 months = 58% of the year.
So, 3/33 = 11% is the % of 33% that 3% of the total is a percentage of
And 7 / 12 = ~ 58%
So, 11 / (1-.58) = ~ 19%
The arithmatical conclusion is that every effected US Fed Govt agency / program will have to cut ~ 20% for the rest of 2013.
So the Repubs strategy is that their base will not even feel the cuts so they can just wait it out then say afterwards “see, we can cut as we didn’t even notice them”. But what is ironic is that they are aware of how big the cuts really are but they are used to getting away with telling their willfully ignorant base what that base wants to hear and not reality they will, once again, be bitten by reality.
Another irony is that this will drastically effect Red States’ education programs which is what would be required for their base to be able to do the arithmetic in order to accomplish the analysis required to really understand the impact of the sequestration on them personally.
“Life is hard, but its really hard when you are stupid”.