Eagle Tribune - Enough Delays, Sequestration Needs to be Grounded

Op-Ed

By Rep Nicola Tsongas

Several months ago the manager of the Lawrence Municipal Airport notified my office that as a result of sequestration, automatic government spending cuts that went into effect in February, 2013, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) planned to close the air traffic control tower, costing jobs, economic growth and impacting safety at an airport that has seen an increase in flight traffic in recent years.

Airports across the country also faced furloughs for their air traffic controllers, which not only forced pay reductions to workers but also created severe logjams and delays for travelers. No doubt countless people experienced the logjam and received similar messages as I did from their chosen airline warning about delays due to sequestration.

As the initial pinch of sequestration was beginning to cause serious pain for the aviation industry, some effects were put on standby. In early April, the FAA said that it would delay the control tower closings in Lawrence and elsewhere. But officials know this is only a temporary reprieve and are left wondering when the ax will fall. On April 26, the U.S. House of Representatives passed the Reducing Flight Delays Act, which was ultimately signed by the President and prevents the air traffic controller furloughs.

I voted in favor of the Reducing Flight Delays Act in order to save jobs, alleviate traveler delays and help maintain normal operations at smaller airports, like Lawrence Municipal. However, this bill aimed to avoid just one small consequence of sequestration. Preventing these furloughs was the right thing to do, but it is not the final answer.

Enacted as motivation for Congress to find a comprehensive solution to America's economic woes, these automatic cuts, commonly referred to as sequestration, were never meant to take place. The cuts are split evenly between defense and other government programs, blindly slashing the top off of federal agency budgets. Resources many citizens utilize on a daily basis are at risk, including educational opportunities, senior citizen meal assistance programs and public safety initiatives.

I have consistently urged my colleagues in Congress to seek a broader solution to the dangerous impacts of sequestration. These blind, drastic cuts still threaten to stifle an economy that over the past few years has been showing encouraging signs of growth. Tens of thousands of people in Massachusetts alone face the very real possibility of job-loss, while countless more will feel the impact in their daily lives.

For example, Hanscom Air Force Base, the only active duty base in New England, employs thousands of Defense Department civilians who will be affected by upcoming furloughs of two weeks or more. Additionally, millions of dollars will be lost in pay and millions more in construction, modernization and maintenance, which will leave thousands of local contractors without work.

The Merrimack Valley Planning Commission wrote to let me know that 75% of their funding was in jeopardy as a result of these cuts. That means a loss of support for plans to increase our region's energy efficiency and for plans to strengthen our region's manufacturing clusters, which are creating good jobs here. And sequestration will inevitably slow down the roadway and highway projects we have been working on to improve the safety and efficiency of our region's transportation corridors.

Small-business research funding and medical research funding from the National Institutes of Health will suffer steep cuts, stunting the innovation capabilities of our region's small businesses, institutions of higher education and growing high-tech economy.

I have also heard from numerous 3rd District residents detailing the individual impact of the sequester. An IRS employee from Andover is facing a pay cut and has seen a reduction in the quality of service her department provides. A Methuen resident who works for the Department of Defense wrote to me explaining that if a planned furlough happens for her, she may be forced to sell her home and move out of Massachusetts, where she has lived her whole life.

Congress may have prevented furloughs for air traffic controllers, but thousands of students across the country have been deeply affected by cuts to programs like Head Start, special education, and Title I funding to high poverty schools, and thousands of senior citizens have lost their access to programs like Meals on Wheels.

A piecemeal approach is simply unacceptable. Managing from crisis to crisis is an absurd and ineffective way to govern. But to this point, Republican leadership has prevented any broader solution from being considered by Congress.

There is room for a comprehensive and balanced approach to deficit reduction that combines additional spending cuts with new revenue sources, just as every bipartisan group that has looked at this problem has suggested.

It is not too late to build a sustainable plan across party lines. The American people deserve a real solution, not just a series of stopgaps. We need to ground sequestration before more dangerous impacts really take off.

Congresswoman Niki Tsongas represents Massachusetts 3rd District, which includes Lawrence, Methuen, Andover, and Haverhill.

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