The Sequestration - Essay Example

The sequestration Macroeconomic factors dictate governments’ level of expenditure based on economic stability. The need to reduce and even try to mitigate debts however requires expenditure cuts for a positive margin with government revenues. Attempts to reduce the United States budget deficits led to legislations for The Sequester and I, in this paper, define the concept of sequester and argues for its negative impacts on the United States economy and the American people. The Sequester defines a planned automated reduction on government agencies’ expenditure.

It is planned to run for a decade with a total cut of $ 12 trillion that will be distributed equally among the years. The reduction in expenditure is further divided equally between defense based agencies and agencies for domestic utilities. It aims at reducing the government’s budget deficit with an ultimate goal of reducing the federal government’s debts that escalated during the last global recession (Smith 1).Implementation of The Sequester offers a number of adverse consequences to the nation’s economy and to the American people.

Budget cut has been associated with strong impacts on education in the state of Texas that stand to lose almost $ 70 million in the sector. This will mean lost employment opportunities for teachers in the state, almost 5000 students will lose state funded health services, and many military personnel will be forced into unpaid leaves. These examples identify microeconomic challenges to the affected populations and the challenges may spill over to macroeconomic factors such as gross domestic product level and consumer price index.

Strong adverse impacts of the cuts also promise reduced health care funding in New York and cuts on military allocations across many states (LoGiurato 1). Infrastructure is also likely to be affected by the cuts (Landers 1).The Sequester is also expected to have significant effects on higher education and diversified secondary effects on people’s social lives and on professional scopes. Reduced aid to students is likely to affect ability to learn, especially among poor students who have relied on federal funds.

The cuts will also affect research programs with direct effects on industrial developments and students’ learning processes and this identifies threats of incompetence and inefficiencies in professional practice as the students venture into career. It may also affect employability of students (Bidwell 1). The most significantly affected academic research programs are those that funded by federal agencies such as the National Science Foundation (Mervis 1, 2). Some provisions of the cuts discriminate against some marginalized groups and may have significant social effects on the populations.

The Sequester imposes “cuts of 5 percent across the Indian Health Services” while no cut applies to any other medical coverage scheme in the nation (New York Times 1). While the cut may affect Indians’ accessibility to health care, its discriminative effects are likely to have psychological impact on members of the community (New York Times 1). There are however opinions that the current level of government spending should be controlled (McAllister 1).Existing literature therefore identifies sequester with adverse effects on the American people and these effects can easily spill to the nation’s economy.

Even though the government suffers budget deficit, it should seek alternative solutions because The Sequester will do serious harm to the American citizens and the U.S. economy.Works citedBidwell, Allie. “Sequestration Presents Uncertain Outlook for Students, Researches, and Job-Seekers.” Chronicle of Higher Education. Chronicle of Higher Education, 1 Mar. 2013. Web. 12 Apr. 2013.Landers, Jay. "Budget Cuts Loom for Infrastructure Programs Unless Congress Acts." Civil Engineering (2012): 14-15.

Academic Search Complete. Web. 12 Apr. 2013.LoGiurato, Brett. “11 States that are Going to Get Slammed Hardest by the Sequester.” Business Insider. Business Insider, 26 Feb. 2013. Web. 12 Apr. 2013.McAllister, Shelly. "Americas Storied History is a Compelling Budget Story." Public Manager 42.1 (2013): 9-11. ProQuest. Web. 12 Apr. 2013.Mervis, Jeffrey. "Big or Small, Science Will Suffer If Sequestration Goes into Effect." Science 337.6096 (2012): 786-787. Academic Search Complete. Web. 12 Apr. 2013.New York Times.

“Sequestration Hits the Reservation.” Editorial. New York Times. New York Times, 20 Mar. 2013. Web. 12 Apr, 2013.Smith, Matt. “CNN Explains Sequestration.” CNN. Cable News Network, 19 Feb. 2013. Web. 12 Apr. 2013.