“There’s just not enough money to go around,” Peterson said. “There are really going to be a lot of people out there who will be living without power.”
The Congressional Budget Office estimated in February that sequestration will slow U.S. economic growth this year by 0.6 percentage point. Gross domestic product rose at a 2.5 percent annual rate in the first quarter, Commerce Department figures released April 26 showed.
Investors are showing little concern about the budgetary uncertainty in Washington. The Standard & Poor’s 500 Index closed at 1,626.67 on May 9, a gain of 14 percent this year, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average climbed above 15,000 for the first time on May 7.
“When the sequester first hit, the consequences weren’t immediately apparent because it was trickling out over time,” said Melissa Boteach, director of the Center for American Progress’s Half in Ten Project, which is designed to help cut poverty over the next decade. “You’ll see over the next weeks and months the ways that this is hitting struggling families even more.”
Obama’s Prediction
In the weeks before sequestration took effect on March 1, President Barack Obama had warned the cuts would hurt the military and shut campgrounds at popular national parks, delay travelers at airports and cut safety inspections at food plants.
A stopgap measure Obama signed on March 26 restored funding for meat inspections and eased reductions for some social programs, including nutrition aid for low-income families. A month later, Congress acted to boost funding for the Federal Aviation Administration to put an end to air-traffic controller furloughs blamed for delays at U.S. airports.
Representative Gerald Connolly, a Virginia Democrat, said the cuts are likely to remain at least through the end of this fiscal year.
“We’re going to have to live with it because Republicans have cynically seen this as their opportunity to shrink government,” Connolly said. “Many in their caucus know the cost of everything, but see the value in nothing.”
Closed Gardens