New York stands to lose billions of dollars under federal cuts slated to kick in Friday — forcing schools across the state to cut 1,030 teachers and aides, the White House said yesterday.
In its campaign to ramp up public pressure on Congress, the Obama administration yesterday released a new list of cuts that will hit states hard, including $79 million to New York state public schools.
From schools to military bases and medical research, the White House was banging the drum yesterday with new warnings of harm to public services in a bid to strong-arm Congress to back new taxes.
Among the other big hits would be cuts to military operations in the state, which could see a $108 million reduction, the administration said.
New York elected officials and Weill Cornell Medical Center staff gathered yesterday to decry the looming cuts that they say could cost New York some $167 million in medical research grants.
“Research funded by the federal government has made possible the medical marvels that we often hear about,” said Dr. Laurie Glimcher, dean of the medical school, which receives 70 percent of its funding from the government.
Republicans, however, accused the president yesterday of using scare tactics over the automatic $85 billion in cuts, known as sequestration, to get his way on raising new tax revenues.
The latest cuts described by the White House don’t include the nearly $3 billion in Sandy aid that could be lost to New York and Jersey, along with cuts to the TSA that would force airlines to cut back on flights.
Deep spending cuts could also curtail civil trials in the federal courts for up to a month. A memo outlining “emergency measures” says nearly $500 million nationally will have to be slashed.
“Absent alternatives, civil jury trials may have to be suspended under sequestration for approximately four weeks beginning in September 2013,” according to the plan by the Executive Committee on Judicial Conference.
“It’s a terrible way to cut spending — I don’t disagree with that,” Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) said on “Fox News Sunday.”
“But to not cut 2.5 percent out of the total budget over a year when it’s twice the size it was 10 years ago? Give me a break,” he said.
Neither side showed any movement yesterday on resolving the issue.
Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) called on Obama to spend more time working with Congress rather than trying to demonize lawmakers.
“The president should be calling us over to Camp David or to the White House, somewhere, and sitting us down and trying to avert these cuts,” he said on CNN’s “State of the Union.”
The sequester cuts were put in place in 2011 to force a bipartisan panel of lawmakers to come up with $1.2 trillion in spending cuts over 10 years. The panel failed.
Gov. Bobby Jindal (R-La.) stood firm yesterday on the need for the cuts.
“They’ve rolled out this great political theater about how cutting 3 percent of the federal budget can cause these awful consequences,” Jindal said on “Meet the Press.” “Here’s a chance to say, ‘Here’s how we can do it better.’ ”
Additional reporting by Bruce Golding