ARIZONA DANGER ALERT ( United States Congress is going to Lay OFF 7000 Customs and BP Agents ) Danger zone

• Public safety: Under sequestration, U.S. Customs and Border Protection would also have to lay off more than 7,000 officers and agents, undermining border security efforts across the country and in Southern Arizona. The Department of Justice also would be forced lay off approximately 1,000 federal agents and 1,300 correctional officers at the Bureau of Prisons.


TERRORISTS


•Defense: The Department of Defense would have to reduce all garrison and training budgets by more than 20 percent and cut $3 billion from defense health programs. Reducing military readiness and targeting service members’ hard-earned benefits is not the way to cut military spending.

•Health care : More than $1.6 billion would be cut from medical research grants through the National Institutes for Health, our nation’s premier institution for medical research. This would mean a reduction in research projects that aim to find treatments and cures for devastating and costly diseases like cancer, Alzheimer's, heart disease and diabetes. Additionally community health centers would have to stop serving 900,000 patients as a result of cuts of $120 million, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention would provide 540,000 fewer doses of vaccines.

• The University of Arizona: The University of Arizona could lose hundreds of thousands of dollars in grants for research from NIH, the National Science Foundation, NASA and other federal agencies. Their research helps to create high-wage jobs in our community—we cannot afford to lose these grants.

Everywhere I go in my district, I hear from constituents and small businesses owners across the political spectrum who are deeply concerned about these automatic budget cuts going into effect. I’m concerned about these cuts and I'm also deeply distressed by the perpetual dysfunction in Washington that has made manufactured crises routine. Congress must act now.