By Connor Radnovich

Arizona Capitol Times

Jan. 18, 2013

Phoenix Mayor Greg Stanton joined other mayors Thursday who criticized Washington for its inability to act on the budget, a failure that could cripple local economies.

The mayors, in Washington for the winter meeting of the U.S. Conference of Mayors, were part of a session focused on the looming “sequester” – drastic, automatic budget cuts set to take effect March 1 if no budget deal is reached...

Besides being painful in the short run, sequestration cuts would have little beneficial impact in the long run, said Shai Akabas, senior policy analyst with the Bipartisan Policy Center. He said they would not solve many of the country’s long-term budget problems.

Akabas said the current plan – to cut each budget line item by a certain percentage – would be “chaos.” He noted, for example, that a cut to the defense budget would not slow the growth of veterans benefits, even though they are expected to soon exceed current personnel costs.

“That can be reformed with sensible policies passed by Congress. Sequester will do absolutely nothing to change that trend, similar with procurement issues and other such problems,” Akabas said.

Read the full article here

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Economic Policy Project