The battle over government spending may seem like a faraway story of budget maneuvering, political posturing and the acrimonious debates in Washington.
Morris Borders is here to tell you: government spending matters in metro Atlanta.
The 48-year-old Acworth man, a software engineer, had worked for an Atlanta-area defense contractor for more than a decade when his position was cut in April amid recent reductions in federal funding.
The defense sector here is not huge, so it’s tough for him to find a place to land. Worse, what defense hiring there is in Atlanta has been chilled: He believes he was in line for several positions – one at a local company, one in a university. But the jobs hinged on Pentagon funding that hasn’t been coming.
He doesn’t want to move, but he can’t help but consider it.
“We have a son at UGA, a daughter in middle school, a son in high school,” he said. “We do not want to move halfway across the country. But I have opportunities elsewhere in the defense industry. There are a lot of opportunities in Florida, in Texas. Some in D.C. and Baltimore.”
His wife has a job as a nurse, but Borders doesn’t want to be on the sidelines for long - and he doesn’t see why he should be.
“It is just frustrating to me,” he said. “I have been a software engineer for a long time.”
