Dear Congressional Representative,
I am writing you to express my concerns about the budget
sequester scheduled to go into effect on March 1, 2013 – less than two weeks
from now – unless you do something to stop it.
I am a federal employee. I work for the Department of Labor’s
Employment and Training Administration as a federal project officer. I believe in the mission of our Department,
namely protecting and advancing the welfare of wage earners in our great
nation. Through my work at the
Employment and Training Administration, I manage a portfolio of federal grants totaling
$75 Million in tax payer dollars and H-1B visa application fees. Our grantees, including technical colleges,
state and local units of government, and industry associations, use these funds
to implement occupational skills training programs vital to the growth of our
economy. My responsibilities as a federal
project officer include the provision of regulatory compliance oversight and
technical assistance for the grant projects to which I’m assigned. This means I ensure through regular and
frequent monitoring and interaction with these grantee organizations that the
grant funds are spent appropriately and planned outcomes are achieved.
The compliance monitoring and technical assistance provided
by federal employees like me ensures that our tax dollars are spent wisely and
judiciously to achieve the best return on the investment for tax payers and
employers. You may have recently heard
about a federal grant program in Michigan that wasted hundreds of thousands of
tax payer dollars with little to no outcomes.
Effective grant monitoring and technical assistance provision provided
by skilled federal project officers can prevent this waste and abuse from
occurring. Our compliance activities
include the recovery of misspent funds through the implementation of
administrative and legal proceedings.
These important grant management functions will not happen effectively
under a sequestration resulting in up to 22 working days lost through furlough.
My family will be significantly and detrimentally impacted
by the loss of up to 22 days of wage income between March 1 and September 30,
2013. As the sole wage earner in my
house, I do not have enough money in my savings account to cover the loss of
income. This will mean a significant cut
back in our family budget, which in turn results in us spending less in our
community for the consumer goods and services that we normally purchase. I will be looking for additional employment
opportunities to attempt to recover some of the lost wage income resulting from
my furlough days. Hopefully, we will be
able to make it through these uncertain times through sensible reductions in
spending and additional income realized through a second part-time job. Why can’t Congress implement the same mix of
spending cuts and revenue creation my family will be forced to as a result of
the country’s current budget imbalance?
I am extremely disappointed and frustrated with the impasse
in Congress concerning the budget deficit and the sequestration. The sequestration was designed as a doomsday
device to motivate Congress to implement a sensible plan to deal with the national
debt and budget deficit. It was never
meant to be implemented! Now, we are
talking about letting it happen because, as some members of Congress have said,
it won’t be that bad. As your
constituent, I couldn't disagree more. It
will be very bad for me and my family.
Like most middle-class families, we are not financially secure enough to
withstand the impact of a loss of over a month’s wage income without
significant difficulties. Maybe it won’t
have much impact on individuals who gross more than six figures in annual
earnings and have the benefit of multigenerational wealth and personal safety nets,
but that’s not my family. We will have
to spend less and earn more to cover our fixed monthly expenses that can’t be
cut. As many members of Congress want to
compare the national budget to a family budget, why can’t Congress act to raise
more revenues to deal with the current crisis?
That’s how my family will be dealing with your inaction.
As your constituent, I am demanding that you work with your
colleagues in Congress to ensure that my family is not financially impacted by
the sequestration. You must act to pass
legislation that includes a sensible combination of spending reductions and
revenue creation to prevent the implementation of the sequestration. Failure to do so will financially devastate my
family and other middle-class families around the country. This is unacceptable.
I am proud to serve
my country as a federal employee and I am not a faceless bureaucrat – I’m your
constituent, a tax payer, and a citizen.
Sincerely,
Darren E. Kroenke
