Send Us Your Sequestration Stories

Let's put a human face on the policy

Posted by Casey Dreier

2013/03/15 04:36 CDT

Topics: personal stories, Space Policy, NASA Budget

After NASA's recent decision to suspend conference attendance, training, and travel for its employees and contractors, we're really starting to see the effects of the across-the-board, automatic cuts known as Sequestration.

The impact will continue to grow over the coming months, and we here at The Planetary Society want to highlight the effects this policy has on the lives of professional scientists and students.

Do you have a story about how Sequestration has impacted your career? Tell us. All names will be kept confidential (unless you tell us otherwise) but we'd like to share your stories with the world.

The more people realize that policy fights in Washington impact the lives of people every day, the more likely we can end Sequestration and restore some sensible budgeting to science in the United States.

Share you sequestration story.

Comments:

Geo B Shaw: 03/15/2013 06:04 CDT

I am a research scientist funded by NIH (not NASA, sadly). We have been hit by the sequester with a freeze in funds. No new grants funded until a new continuing resolution or a budget is passed. But there has been no budget in 4 years, thanks to the Senate. Maybe the request shouldn't be send us your sequester stories, but rather to send stories of what we see the Administration is choosing to fund during the sequester. I understand while the Planetary Society is doing this, but the sequester is a fraud, conceived by the White House, not Congress. It's designed to hurt high profile things (like NASA's budget), but how about those golf trips for the President? Or his pay? No way -- those are sequester proof.

Casey Dreier: 03/15/2013 07:22 CDT

@Geo B Shaw: Many sequester details, including an exception for Presidential pay, are due to the Gramm-Rudman-Hollings Act passed in 1985 that created the sequester concept. The sequester was designed to be extremely unpleasant in hopes that it would drive opposing sides towards a deal. We're seeing that unpleasantness now. Actual decisions on how and where the cuts are implemented tend to up to the Office of Management and Budget and the Chief Financial Officers of the relevant federal agencies, but the point is that the sequester, by law, cuts evenly from all programs, even good ones. 174 Republicans and 95 Democrats in the House and 45 Democrats and 28 Republicans in the Senate voted for the Budget Control Act that created the Sequester in 2011. The failure of Congress' Super Committee triggered its implementation. You simply cannot blame the White House as the sole instigator.

Anonymous: 03/15/2013 07:45 CDT

Hahahaha! I report from Earth and I'm telling you that the sequestration means that Federal spending will increase dramatically! By unimaginably 15 billion dollar this year! All on credit, i.e. future cuts. And this all-out acceleration of spending on everything is aiming its head into the wall. The US gov is completely bankrupt. Its debt is about 105% of GDP and its yearly deficit about 6% of GDP. And GDP is the estimated measure of the value of everything created by everyone. The sequester is a dramatic INcrease in government spending. What is mathematically necessary is a dramatic DEcrease in governmental spending. I don't think people around here fathom what a chock is about to hit them. NASA is very likely to be abolished altogether.