As part of watching your tax dollars, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution continues to look beyond political rhetoric and track the effects of automatic budget cuts in Georgia. For this story, reporter Katie Leslie traveled to Warner Robins to interview officials and residents about how military spending cuts will hurt one patriotic Georgia community.
WARNER ROBINS — Ken McCall doesn’t work on the Robins Air Force base, but he’s worried about sequestration.
About 60 percent of the patrons at his Warner Robins restaurant are base workers, he said. Once they get hit with the furloughs tied to automatic spending cuts, he expects a whack to his bottom line.
“(Furloughs) impact their expendable income, which impacts me,” said McCall, in between serving up chicken salad and pina colada cake this week. “I’ve already seen that, especially in the past few years with the economy on the decline.”
Concerns like McCall’s prompted more than 300 people to crowd into a Houston County movie theater Wednesday to hear base leaders discuss the across-the-board spending cuts that went into effect March 1. With furloughs at the base expected to start April 25, some 15,000 local civilian employees of the Defense Department could lose as many as 22 days of work through September.
Elsewhere in Georgia, many federal workers have already received details about coming furloughs. At the Robins base, those notices will go out later this month.
People in this patriotic community, one that broadcasts “The Star-Spangled Banner” each day at 5 p.m., say what hurts the military will ultimately hurt them.
“With so many civilian workers, this is our economic driver,” said Ann Gregory, a Realtor who lives in Kathleen and who attended the hearing. Any move Washington makes that affects those workers “just reverberates through our community.”
The so-called sequester, created as part of the Budget Control Act of 2011, is projected to reduce federal spending by $1.1 trillion through 2021, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office. Congress inserted the mechanism of automatic cuts as a weapon, designed to force itself to trim the deficit in a more targeted fashion through the regular budget-writing process. But Republicans and Democrats still couldn’t agree, so the sequester actually happened.
The automatic cuts are largely split between defense and so-called “discretionary” domestic programs, with the rest coming from entitlement programs such as Medicare. The Department of Defense is absorbing $46 billion of the $85 billion in budget slashing this fiscal year.
The cuts at Robins will have a $2.9 billion impact on the surrounding region this year, with nearly 23,000 people directly affected, said Col. Mitchel Butikofer, Commander of the Robins base.
The changes will be felt in a variety of ways, military leaders said. Fewer work days means project time lines might not be met. Some training will be cut. The number of aircraft the base is slated to repair will be trimmed from 177 to 149. Retired military personnel may need to seek health care off-base. Airshows and museum tours will be canceled. Construction projects will be delayed.
Even the Houston County Schools district, which receives more than $25 million in federal aid, will see some funding diminished, according to Superintendent Robin Hines.
Folks in this part of Georgia, a magnet for military retirees, feel especially troubled by the cuts, and not just because they know they will reach into their wallets. For them, the downsizing feels decidedly unpatriotic. After all, the town’s motto is “Every Day In Middle Georgia Is Armed Forces Appreciation Day”.
Frustration with federal lawmakers abounds in the military community, something retired Maj. Gen. Bob McMahon made clear. McMahon heads the 21st Century Partnership, a nonprofit which coordinates efforts between governmental agencies, chambers of commerce and the like to boost the base and town’s fortunes. McMahon’s organization organized the community hearing.
“The situation that we have today has been manufactured,” McMahon told the audience, vowing to turn what he termed “lemons” from Congress into lemonade. “We are where we are with sequestration not by an act of God, but by an act of omission by our federal leadership.”
To help those affected by furloughs, McMahon urged business owners attending the hearing to participate in a “Federal Employee Appreciation Day” each Thursday.
While the region is already feeling anxiety over sequestration, Warner Robins Mayor Chuck Shaheen said they’ve been through this sort of economic tightening before.
“Sequestration is another term for BRAC,” said Shaheen, referring to the Base Realignment and Closure process his community has endured five times.
The community’s focus is on how to support the base, he said, because “what’s good for Robins is good for the region.”
Not everyone here is convinced the full effects of the sequester will take place. Chuck Williams, who runs Chuck’s Gun and Pawn just steps from the base, believes Washington lawmakers are grandstanding and will ultimately strike a deal.
Still, the automatic cuts are all people can talk about in his store, and their reactions are mixed, he said.
“Fifty percent of the people are jumping with joy that they’ll get another day off, and the rest are trying to figure out what they’ll do with a 20 percent pay cut,” he said.
Samantha Schanz is among the latter. Her husband, an instructor at the base’s Combat Communications Readiness School, is among those likely to lose many days of work from April to September. Their family is already feeling the pinch, she said, as her income from advertising sales has taken a hit amid community worry.
The Schanzes started trimming their budget months ago in preparation. They fear that furloughs could result in saving less for their 22-month-old son.
The worst, she said, is the uncertainty.
“You can’t really prepare for the unknown,” she said. “No one really knows what is going to happen.”
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