Cleveland Plain Dealer...
Supercommittee’s failure will trigger ‘some ugly things’ in Ohio  
November 27, 2011 

WASHINGTON, D.C. - The supercommittee is kaput, so now all 535 members of Congress will try to do what a mere dozen could not -- or else let $1.2 trillion in unpopular spending cuts begin in little more than a year. 

Few congressmen and congresswomen from Ohio like that prospect, because it would affect popular or important programs. Nevertheless, Northeast Ohio could be affected in these ways if the automatic cuts triggered by the supercommittee’s failure take place: 

Area hospitals: University Hospitals would take a $12 million annual hit just from the planned 2 percent cut to Medicare providers under the supercommittee trigger, said Heidi Gartland, vice president of government relations. Cuts to federal budgets for medical research, medical education and training, poison control and other health programs would make the hit harder. 

Two percent may not sound like much, but Chester Speed, the Cleveland Clinic’s executive director for federal relations, said it will mean billions in provider cuts. Furthermore, 2 percent would be just the level of Medicare provider cuts. Other domestic, nonmilitary programs would be hit with 7.8 percent cuts, according to the Congressional Budget Office, or CBO. 

Cuyahoga Valley National Park: The national parks would face an 8 percent cut overall, said John Gardner, budget and appropriations legislative representative of the National Parks Conservation Association, citing the CBO. The Interior Department, with possible input from Congress, will have to decide how and whether the pain is shared among the parks, but the loss of funding could mean reductions in seasonal staffing, fewer open hours for visitors’ centers, limited park hours or fewer interpretive programs. 

Ohio social programs and schools: Although specific agency-level cuts must be worked out, Policy Matters Ohio, a liberal-leaning think tank, examined the potential effect by reviewing the share of federal dollars that go to social services and education programs in Ohio. Examples include the Ohio Department of Aging, which gets 82 percent of its budget from the federal government, helping pay for such things as Meals on Wheels, respite care and legal services for seniors. Other state agencies with large portions of federal money include those overseeing health, alcohol and drug addiction services, developmental disabilities, and job and family services programs. 

Great Lakes cleanup: This is one area where the bad news might not be all that bad, said Jeff Skelding, director of Healing Our Waters, a coalition of conservationists, businesses and others at the forefront of the government-funded cleanup. That’s because even if the cleanup program has to absorb as much as a 10 percent cut, that’s smaller than a number of other environmental programs have faced in recent years, Skelding said. It received $300 million annually in each of the last two years, while other programs lost all their federal funding. 

These and scores of other reductions would begin in 2013, a result of the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction, or supercommittee, failing to agree by its deadline Wednesday on at least $1.2 trillion in deficit reduction over the next decade. Reductions would be split between defense and nondefense spending, each with average cuts of $55 billion a year. 

“The good thing is everyone will be affected equally,” said Rep. Steve LaTourette, a Republican from Bainbridge Township. “The bad thing is everyone will be affected equally. It will not be pretty. It was designed not to be pretty.” 

This automatic trigger was supposed to be so unpopular that the supercommittee, formed in September, would invariably find a better way to achieve the savings, using tax increases, spending cuts or a combination of the two. 

“But they didn’t,” LaTourette said. “As a result, some very ugly things are going to happen.” 

Many members of Congress now say they’ll attempt to do what the supercommittee couldn’t: try again to shave $1.2 trillion in deficits -- or at least remove the more onerous automatic cuts. But President Barack Obama said he will veto any bill that tries to soften the trigger. 

The odds of producing a veto-proof bill after the supercommittee’s failure are long, considering the split between the Republican-run House and Democrat-run Senate. Telegraphing the continuation of these divisions, Rep. Jim Jordan, a Republican from Urbana and leader of a group of conservative House members, said he still wants a bill that cuts and caps the debt and forces a balanced budget -- a bill the Senate will not pass. Jordan rejects calls by Democrats to put tax increases in the mix. 

The automatic cuts, though criticized by many, have several protections for seniors and the poor. Individuals on Social Security and Medicare will not see their benefits cut, even if their doctors’ pay drops. The Veterans of Foreign Wars says it believes veterans’ health benefits are also exempt. 

So are Pell grants for college students, the Children’s Health Insurance Program and grants to states for Medicaid, the joint federal-state health care program for low-income Americans. 

But there are many other uncertainties. Among them: What will happen to the NASA Glenn Research Center and the Defense Finance Accounting Service, both sources of employment in Cleveland? 

Democratic Rep. Norm Dicks of Washington, the senior Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee, told colleagues last month that Obama could exempt military personnel from defense cuts. Still undetermined is whether that means civilians in the Defense Department, including those at DFAS, would absorb more of the cuts. 

Democratic Rep. Marcy Kaptur of Toledo, a senior member of the House Appropriations Committee, said she has heard “vast numbers” of concerns from people in her district about the cuts. Mayors worry about community development funding. School systems care about school nutrition programs. Defense interests with contracts to complete a particular weapons system are worried about disruption of those programs. 

Each of the 12 appropriations subcommittees will get a pot of money to divide among the entities they oversee, Kaptur said, although the White House will also play an advisory role. Kaptur said across-the-board cuts would be fairer than picking winners and losers. 

But across-the-board cuts won’t be viewed favorably by all. 

“The health care industry, for example, may be better off with the certainty of such cuts, while businesses in the defense industry may consider this a loss,” said Joe Roman, president and CEO of the Greater Cleveland Partnership. “NASA funding will remain a challenge,” he said. “While the agency has strong support in Ohio and other NASA states, the program also has its detractors. We’ll have to remain vigilant in our advocacy on behalf of NASA Glenn.”

Rep. Dennis Kucinich, a Cleveland Democrat, said he does not expect the automatic cuts to even take place. He did not specify why. Nathan White, Kucinich’s spokesman, said the congressman “will continue to fight for NASA and the Great Lakes.” 

Sen. Sherrod Brown, an Ohio Democrat on the Senate Appropriations Committee, also will work to make sure the coming cuts don’t unfairly target priorities important to Ohio, said his spokeswoman, Meghan Dubyak. 

But Brown said this will require hard choices. 

“Every day, people across the country have been forced to make difficult decisions on how to balance their own family budgets, and we as a country should be doing no less,” he said. 

Read this and other articles at the Cleveland Plain Dealer