After the 'sequester,' now what?

$85 billion in across-the-board cuts to defense and social programs took effect March 1. The cuts must occur this fiscal year, which ends Sept. 30. Here's how things look.

6. Q: Will public safety truly be affected?

Perhaps. Consider the Federal Mine Safety and Health Review Commission. Most of its costs are in the payroll of safety inspectors who go out to look at mines, says Richard Kogan, at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. "You'll inspect fewer mines" under the sequester, he says. "That's all you can do."

Similarly, some observers worry that air safety could be affected by staffing cuts for air-traffic control and security screening of passengers. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood has said safety won't be compromised, but that busy routes will see delays.

"One can avoid the stupidest of these results," says Mr. Kogan, referring to the sequester's arbitrary mechanics. But he says there's no way to implement the cuts by Sept. 30 just by having agencies spend less on paper clips and the like.

Meanwhile, furlough notices are starting to go out to hundreds of thousands of federal workers, including Defense Department civilian workers, prison guards, airport security officers, and agriculture inspectors. (Uniformed military personnel, the US Postal Service, and the Department of Veterans Affairs are exempt.)

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Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

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If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

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