Shaun Bevan
South Florida Business Journal
Unless Congress comes up with another plan by the end of the year, $191 million of defense contracts in South Florida will be sliced from the nation’s budget over the next 10 years.
The 2011 Budget Control Act mandates $487 billion cut from the nation’s defense budget by 2021, but the reduction could double under sequestration, which mandates $500 billion more in cuts.
The additional cuts will trigger on Jan. 2, 2013, unless an alternative is proposed, but President Barack Obama has said he will veto any changes Congress makes to sequestration budget cuts unless Congress makes up the difference, according to a report from the Center for Security Policy.
Under the act and without sequestration, Broward, Miami-Dade, and Palm Beach counties stand to lose about $95 million, or 9 percent, of their defense contracts. Under sequestration, the counties will lose $191 million, or 18 percent, according to the report.
Many of the contracts are awarded to companies involved in a variety of industries from aircraft parts manufacturing, landscaping services to hotels and motels.
Florida is one of the top states that would feel the brunt of the cuts, according to “The Economic Impact of the Budget Control Act of 2011 on (U.S. Department of Defense) and Non-DOD Agencies Report,” prepared by George Mason University.
It could lose 41,905 jobs in the DOD sector and 37,554 in the non-DOD sector, for a total of 79,459 jobs, the report states.
Find the economic impact of the Budget Control Act report here.
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