Most of the times as individuals we see or hear about national events and never make it relevant to our lives. However, the big buzz of Washington’s disagreements in regards to our Federal budget, will hit really, really close to home.
Locally, the Federal government funds the LBJ Library, the Museum on the UT campus, and several parks; such as Big Bend National and the LBJ Historic National Park. A Federal shutdown would force more that 800,000 Americans to stay at home while an agreement is reached in Washington.
Deputy Secretary of Defense William J. Lynn III released a message “to military members and civilian personnel outlining that activities in support of national security would continue in the event of a shutdown. They include operations in Iraq, Afghanistan and Japan as well as Libya-related support operations.” As an individual I cannot imagine the hardship that can fall on all these Americans that solely depend on the goodness of Uncle Sam.
A wide range of Federal departments financially support Austin. Paying for everything from health care services, aid for public schools, tuition assistance and university research. For the 2009 Fiscal year, Travis County received $17.8 billion; Williamson County got $1.38 billion; and Hays, $645 million. The statewide total was $227.1 billion in federal support.
As a taxpayer and a citizen of the United States, I hope our elected officials can come to accordance in regards to our Federal budget, otherwise this is becoming a despairing deception.
You called that one perfectly, Emmanuel. Last Thursday, I was actually sitting in class talking about the potential shutdown with a few of my classmates, and it was honestly shocking. There were so few people in my class that understood exactly what a shutdown would mean to them, individually. With numbers like these, it's easy to see exactly what would happen to us if funding ceased.
ReplyDeleteOf course, we did avoid the shutdown. Seeing where some of the last minute budget cuts came from surprised me though. There were several groups that I didn't even realize existed (such as the U.S. Institute of Peace, heating for the poor, the Administration on Aging, etc.). Even more shocking than the existence of these groups is the massive amounts of funding some of them receive.The Administration on Aging, for example, has been receiving $2 billion in federal funding per year for the last few years. Not to say that it isn't an important group, I'm just surprised that we don't hear more about these groups that receive more money than entire counties.
On a side note, seeing these groups makes me realize just how large of a role special interest groups play in our modern government. Without the larger special interest groups, none of these federally funded groups would exist to receive any funding.