Letter to Congress Highlighting the State Sequestration Charts
July 23, 2012
As a follow-up to our letter of July 10 on the impact of looming sequestration cuts on education, we would like to share with you some additional data, broken out by state, on the impact of these cuts on selected education programs. The new charts clearly demonstrate the devastating impact on education in your state if Congress fails to find the required $1.2 trillion in deficit reduction before January 2, 2013.
As we indicated in our earlier letter, the pending cuts would dramatically impact 9.35 million students by eliminating services, cutting financial aid and increasing class sizes. As many as 80,500 jobs could be lost in early education, K-12 and postsecondary education. At the same time, Congress is contemplating extending tax cuts for the top two percent of earners in our nation – leaving us without the revenues necessary to avoid devastating cuts to education and implement a balanced approach to deficit reduction.
Education programs have already suffered significant harmful cuts to both K-12 and higher education. They cannot continue to be the source for deficit reduction while millionaires and large corporations benefit from tax cuts and loopholes the country can’t afford. It isn’t right to balance the budget on the backs of children.
We encourage you to review this new state-by-state analysis to see the impact of sequestration on selected education programs and the students they serve in your state. And, we urge Congress to act now on a balanced approach to deficit reduction in order to avoid these draconian cuts. Congress must craft a balanced approach that protects non-defense discretionary programs, including education, from further hits, while ensuring that the richest two percent in our nation pay their fair share toward economic recovery and strength. We simply cannot wait -- the risk of triggering these devastating automatic cuts is too great.