IS SEQUESTRATION THE US VERSION OF AUSTERITY?

We'd better figure it out because it starts next Friday March 1st.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And in—specifically, I think you mentioned as many as 185,000 people would lose Section 8 housing subsidy certificates. What are some of the other immediate effects of if this goes into—this happens starting March 1 or March 15th or in the next few weeks?

IMARA JONES: I mean, it reads like a laundry list, and we could take up the rest of the time going through the list. But some of the critical areas are: 125,000 people will lose Section 8 housing, which is critical housing support for the working poor; 100,000 people who are homeless will not receive the support that they need without a place to go; there won’t be 450,000 AIDS tests; something like 500,000 vaccines won’t be manufactured; a million people won’t be able to access community health centers; unemployment insurance for four million long-term unemployed will be cut by 10 percent; in terms of education, 70,000 kids won’t have access to Head Start; another 30,000 in terms of child care assistance. And then, if the sequestration goes on, because, you know, it’s a rolling—sort of a rolling storm, if it goes on through the summer and into the fall, the programs that support up to 20 million of the nation’s poorest students will be cut and are in jeopardy.