This article first appeared in the St. Louis Beacon, March 19, 2013 - The majority of Americans, responding to a poll, say they are still unsure about the impact of automatic federal budget cuts — sequestration -— that took effect March 1. According to a Gallup survey, 55 percent of respondents said they didn’t know enough to say if sequestration is a good or bad thing for the nation, and 60 percent said they didn’t know if the impact would be good or bad for them personally.
For the most part, sequestration has yet to make a direct impact on people not employed by the federal government because the details of the $85 billion in cuts are just now being announced by federal agencies — and many of the cuts haven’t yet taken effect.
Brian DeSmet, 43, of St. Louis, said he has heard few specifics since the publicity that surrounded the March 1 deadline. He thinks people will become more concerned as federal funding decreases — or stops — for programs that personally affect them.
DeSmet, the market manager of Soulard Market, said that, for example, he has heard few details regarding meat inspections — an issue about which he is specifically concerned.
"I think those programs are already underfunded if you look at how many inspections they do. Giving them less funding is just asking for trouble," said DeSmet who responded to a recent Beacon survey through the Public Insight Network.
DeSmet said the last-minute agreement on Dec. 31 by Congress to extend the farm bill had already taken a toll on programs that assist small farmers — and that was before sequestration took effect.
"I'd like to see an actual agreement on the budget," DeSmet said. "I don’t see why, for the Republicans, there can be no talk of raising any taxes for anyone. I think that has to be on the table. If you're going to cut a bunch of programs, you at least need to raise money as well. You can't raise money just by cutting programs."
On the other hand, Rick Lachner, of Bunker Hill, Ill., said the publicity that had surrounded the sequestration deadline was "fear mongering."
"These cuts are not immediate. They are gradual as funding runs out for respective programs," said Lachner, 51, a technical specialist for a financial services company.
"I am not concerned," he said. "The federal government needs to be cut, and the longer it lasts, the better for us all."
Gallup noted that Republicans were significantly more likely to have an opinion about sequestration and tended to be more positive about the cuts than independents or Democrats who had an opinion. About 34 percent of Republican respondents thought sequestration was good for the country, compared to 10 percent of Democrats and 13 percent of independents. The poll was taken March 11 and 12.
"Americans are likely basing their opinions of the cuts on what they hear, read and see in the news and from friends and colleagues, as well as on their own experiences," according to the Gallup report. "Apparently, nothing in the information flow from any of these sources has been enough — to date — to move the public’s opinions about the cuts in either direction."
