States Brace For Sequester Shock

NBC NEWS
The effects of sequestration may hit all too close to home for some Americans if lawmakers allow the cuts to take full effect later this month. One day after President Barack Obama signed an order to cut spending by $1.2 trillion over a decade, NBC News takes a look at how people may feel the pinch from New York to Chicago to Los Angeles.

New York
Young children in New York City’s most disadvantaged neighborhoods might be among those affected by sequestration as Head Start programs face a 5 percent cut, NBC New York reported. In the Brownsville section of Brooklyn, the SCO Morris Koppelman Center is the only Head Start program in an area where almost half of neighborhood children live below the poverty line. “It’s extremely difficult and very frightening to think what will happen to the families and the children in the community,” Shana Hewitt, program director at the Morris Koppelman Center, told NBC New York. 

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Who Will Take Over Detroit's Finances?

ASSOCIATED PRESS
It appears the appointment of an emergency manager to take over Detroit’s failing finances is all but a done deal. But one question remains: Who will get the difficult, thankless job? Gov. Rick Snyder is being coy about his selection, saying only the person is “top notch.” Michigan’s Emergency Loan Board will do the official hiring of the candidate, who will provide state oversight on spending and restructuring.
     Whoever is chosen, he or she will not only have to tackle the city’s massive deficits and debt but also succeed in pulling Detroit out of a fiscal tailspin so steep that it’s had to borrow millions of dollars just to pay its bills and city workers’ salaries.
     “This will take somebody who has very deep and strong financial expertise and very deep and strong political and personal capabilities,” said Timothy Horner, a partner in the Warner Norcross & Judd law firm. Horner, whose firm has been closely following Detroit’s fiscal struggles because it represents businesses and creditors, told The Associated Press on Friday that the emergency manager job is “a very difficult assignment.”  READ FULL ARTICLE