[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 159 (2013), Part 4]
[House]
[Page 5056]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                              {time}  1040
          NEGATIVE EFFECTS OF SEQUESTRATION ON LOCAL EMPLOYERS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Virginia (Mr. Connolly) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. CONNOLLY. During the past 2 weeks, I met with local employers and 
constituents who expressed continued frustration with the negative 
effects of sequestration in our community. Republicans and Democrats 
alike spent most of the past year warning of the dire consequences 
these cuts would have on our economy, and yet the recently adopted 
continuing resolution for the rest of the fiscal year bakes in those 
very harmful cuts. I share my constituents' frustrations, which is why 
I voted against the self-inflicted wound on our economy.
  Every community in America will feel the ripple effects of 
sequestration, but my northern Virginia district will be 
disproportionately impacted because of the high concentration of 
military facilities, Federal employees and businesses that partner with 
the Federal Government. We do cybersecurity, custodial services, and 
everything in between. I met with a number of these employers. They 
expressed real concern that the lingering uncertainty over 
sequestration threatens job security and the ability to remain 
competitive economically.
  I fear the consequences of sequestration and what that will mean to 
small businesses that don't have the same resources as their larger 
counterparts to weather these steep cuts. I visited one company with 
200 employees who are developing a laser-based flight guidance system 
for NASA through a Small Business Innovation Research grant. Just 
recently, it announced that their technology is being deployed through 
a contract with the Defense Department to assist with remote detection 
of explosives to better protect our troops in the field. They're 
worried about cutbacks.
  The Small Business Administration's fiscal '13 budget will be reduced 
by more than $92 million as a result of sequestration, and more than 
one-fourth of those cuts will come from the Small Business Loan 
Program, directly affecting small businesses, veteran-owned businesses, 
and female- and minority-owned businesses in their ability to hire. As 
my colleagues know, the Federal Government has a small business 
contracting goal of 23 percent. We have fallen short of that goal in 
the last 6 years, and sequestration will actually make it harder to 
ever achieve that goal.
  I also met with my local chamber of commerce to discuss its desire to 
expand the regional Metro system here in the Nation's Capital to 
accommodate future growth and development throughout the region. The 
most recent census data says our community has the highest 
concentration of mega-commuters in the country. There is no question we 
need to invest more in our regional transportation network. This 
particular proposal enjoys bipartisan support, but yet, under 
sequestration, it's headed nowhere because the New Starts program, 
under the Federal Transit Administration, will be cut by as much as 
$100 million because of sequestration.
  Whether it's cuts in small business assistance or in transportation, 
sequestration is reducing our investments in the very things that 
create jobs and provide for our competitive advantage in the future. 
Local realtors I met with expressed concern about the uncertainty of 
sequestration putting the brakes on sales just as regional and national 
housing markets are finally showing signs of a robust recovery. The 
slow-down in Federal spending is already creating a drag on local 
economies. A 22 percent drop in defense spending shaved nearly 3 points 
off economic growth in the last quarter, and the CBO projects it could 
be half of the growth otherwise projected in all of 2013 because of 
sequestration.
  Madam Speaker, I don't argue that cuts are needed, but sequestration 
uses a mindless, meat-ax approach in which nothing is spared and 
nothing is differentiated. I've long called for Members of the House to 
work together in a bipartisan fashion and in a balanced way--balanced 
between revenue growth and discrete spending cuts--to move forward and 
reduce the debt. This week's delivery of the President's budget is a 
heartening sign because he does just that. I hope we will heed his 
budget. I hope we will try to work with the President to achieve a 
balanced approach that replaces this mindless sequestration.

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