#RaiseTheCaps and Stop Sequestration

Sequestration is almost here.... again.

If you remember, back in 2011, Congress passed a law to cut spending. Included in the law was a deadline that was supposed to bring members of Congress to the table to negotiate a bipartisan agreement - one that would cut another $1 trillion from the federal budget across the board. (If you don't remember, check out our posts here and here.)

A temporary agreement kept those cuts from taking place, but that package (the "Murray-Ryan" deal) expires in fiscal year 2016 - aka October 1, 2015.

If Congress doesn’t take action, disastrous budget cuts to our nation’s most critical programs—including early education, veterans’ care, law enforcement, women’s health, and more-- will go back into effect, causing pain to millions of Americans across the country.

That’s why more than 2,500 national, state and local organizations are calling on Congress to avoid the impending fiscal disaster and end sequestration. These organizations have come together to say, Raise the Spending Caps. Enough is enough.

If Congress does not work together to stop sequestration, the resulting budget could:

  • De-fund preschool programs in 18 states, causing 60,000 children to lose access to preschool entirely;
  • Shortchange Veterans’ Administration medical care by $690 million, meaning 70,000 fewer veterans receiving medical care, fewer staff critical to improving quality of care, and delays in medical research;
  • Eliminate Positive Train Control (PTC) technology, which could have prevented tragic crashes like the one in Philadelphia in May 2015.
Experts across the political spectrum agree these programs aren’t a driving factor behind our nation’s mid- and long-term fiscal challenges. In fact, reversing sequestration could actually create as many as 1.4 million jobs over the next two years, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) reports.

So Congress can act to end a failed policy now and prevent another fiscal crisis, or deal with finding a cure for its aftermath. There is bipartisan agreement that sequestration is bad policy and ultimately hurts our nation. Let’s choose prevention over cure and Raise the Spending Caps.



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