Trying to head off the looming sequestration budget cuts (most of which aren’t cuts at all), President Obama yesterday released a guide of how each state will be affected. He’s putting particular emphasis on education cuts. As the Washington Post darkly warns, “The Washington area would be hit hard.”
Oh really?
Let’s take the Washington tri-state area – Virginia, Maryland, and the District of Columbia – as a test sample and do a little back-of-the-bar-napkin math. According to the president’s itemized hysterics, the District will lose $533,000 as a result of the sequester. Washington currently budgets $805.1 million for public schools. That means the meat cleaver sequester would lop off a whopping 0.06% of Washington’s public schools budget.
Likewise Virginia spends about $6.5 billion on primary and secondary education at the state level. Sequestration removes $14 million, a .02% cut. Maryland spends about $7 billion and loses $14.4 million through sequestration, another .02% decrease.
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