The Honorable Donna F. Edwards
Sequestration
February 28, 2013
Mr. Speaker, in this Chamber, we’ve heard over the last several days numerous speakers who have spoken quite eloquently about the impact of sequestration on their communities and their constituents across this country; and I daresay there are many Americans who have no idea what sequestration is. But they will come to know, Mr. Speaker, exactly what sequestration is when they figure out that of the range of programs and services that impact them and their communities, the Federal Government is taking a step backwards because of Republicans’ failure to bring forward a balanced approach to dealing with our budget. In fact, we’ve just been moving from one crisis to the next crisis.
Today, in this House Chamber, we did something very special. We passed the reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act, which was first passed in 1994 and had enjoyed bipartisan support up until recently. We ended up passing the Senate version of the Violence Against Women Act which, frankly, we could have done about a year and a half ago but for failure in this House Chamber.
In passing the Violence Against Women Act, we, on the one hand, provided for authorizing funds to support shelters, services, and programs for victims of domestic violence, many of them women, all across this country. And on the other hand, March 1 sequestration looms and, in fact, is happening, and we take away with one hand what we’ve provided with the other under the Violence Against Women Act that was just reauthorized today by a bipartisan vote with overwhelming support from Democrats. But tomorrow, $29 million will be cut from the very shelters and programs that we authorized today.
Six million women all across this country face domestic violence, and yet the programs and services that they depend on from the Federal Government will be ripped away in a sledgehammer approach – across-the-board cuts, arbitrary cuts to the budget beginning on March 1.
Workers and families all across this country have truly grown weary of watching this and past Congresses create and kick down the road fiscal disaster after fiscal disaster. Sequestration is going to rattle our very still-recovering economy and take an axe hammer to so many agencies and programs that are struggling to meet their workloads to deliver services for the American people.
