How Sequestration Will be Felt in Maryland

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Sequester-0227.mp3

February 27, 2013

The clock is ticking down to Friday, when close to a billion dollars is to be cut from federal spending.  This sequester of federal funds will affect every area of government spending, from public health to military spending.  Because of the many federal employees who live here, Maryland is expected to be one of the states hit hardest by the cuts.  Some 46,000 Maryland residents employed by the Department of Defense will be furloughed.

Mary Doyle, an employee at Fort Meade, says she’s planning around the furlough. "I mean, when you’re facing a 20% pay cut, you start calculating exactly what that means for your personal budget and start making decisions about what you’re not going to be doing. I canceled a trip I'd planned to take in April, and another co-worker is canceling kitchen renovations.  So we’re making major financial decisions about money we’re not going to spend because of the talk of furlough."

The cuts will also affect operations we might not think about as much, such as air traffic direction. If sequestration goes through, beginning April 1st, the air traffic control tower will shut down at the airports in Salisbury, Easton, Frederick, Hagerstown, and Martin State Airport in Baltimore.

Sheilah talks about all this with Defense Department spokeswoman, Lieutenant Colonel Elizabeth Robbins, and with Robert Bryant is the airport manager for the Salisbury-Ocean City: Wicomico Regional Airport. 

You can view the White House's breakdown of the impact of sequestratoin here, and Governor Martin O'Malley's breakdown here, as well as a report from George Mason University's Center of Regional Analysis. We plan to continue covering sequestration, and have reached out to Maryland's only Republican Congressman, Andy Harris, to find out his thoughts.