Invisible but Important: Unseen Sequestration Cuts Put All at Risk
by Elaine Snyder | March 20, 2013
Elaine Snyder
Few people love bureaucrats. When they hear that word they think of red tape and faceless people in grey suits sitting in windowless offices rubber stamping paperwork. Well, let me tell you: I am a bureaucrat and I’m proud of it.
I work in the Bureau of Justice Assistance at the Department of Justice. I work for the American people and I am worried about the dangerous effects sequestration will have on the projects that I help make happen.
The Justice Department awards grants to local governments. Those grants are used to keep our communities safe. I’m talking about bully prevention programs in our schools, support for victims of violent crimes and training for local police forces. When sequestration cuts hit us, the projects we work with will not receive the support they need, funds will dry up and our communities will suffer.
So many politicians in Washington claim the sequester cuts are invisible cuts. Well, some of the most important things we do at the Department of Justice are designed to be invisible.
Take for example one project we fund that targets Internet predators. We have law enforcement officials scour the Internet to catch predators trolling in online chat rooms and other websites to prey on children. You may never meet these law enforcement officials; in fact if you do, it means you were doing something wrong.
But when your kid logs on to Facebook or starts tweeting, you want to know that someone is there keeping the bad guys at bay. These invisible crime fighters are in front of their computers protecting our kids from the very real threat of online predators. The Internet is a big place and slowing their work or asking them to do more with less will leave us all more vulnerable.
Sometimes it’s the things we can’t see that we really need the most.
Elaine Snyder, a member of AFSCME Council 26, works for the Bureau of Justice Assistance with the Department of Justice. She lives in Frederick, Md.
