Increasingly partisan infighting on Capitol Hill has seen the deadline to avert $85bn in automatic budget cuts pass without accordThe munificence of Uncle Sam may suddenly be diminished as of late tomorrow night when a slew of painful and indiscriminate government spending cuts are due to come into effect. America, land of the free-spenders, is about to get its first taste of European-style austerity.
A product of the failure of Democrats and Republicans to agree on a prescription to cure the country's deficit disease, the cuts - $85bn by the end of this year and $1.2trn over 10 years - are due officially to come into effect at midnight tomorrow. No one wants them; no one seems to know how to avert them. A nation has been left to stumble blindly into unknown fiscal territory.
For its part, the International Monetary Fund warns that, if fully implemented, the reductions will trim about half a percentage point off the country's economic growth rate in 2013. All across the US, interest groups and industries are warning of particular areas of calamity.
Farmers, for instance, are predicting the "first widespread shortage" of meat, poultry and eggs in decades because of cuts to food inspection teams.The impact will not become clear all at once but, without a political truce soon, it may quickly become unmistakable. Exempt are welfare programmes for the poor and vulnerable and military salaries. But everywhere else, government will be forced to pare back on budgets. First to feel the brunt may be federal workers who will be asked to take furloughs - periods at home without pay - starting 30 days from today.
But the list of potential victims is much longer, particularly in the defence sector, because half of the cuts will fall on the Pentagon. The industry warns that the reductions - known as the "sequester" - will end up costing 2 million jobs. Among others are airports where security screeners and air traffic controllers could be culled, the medical research community where funding is likely to dwindle and national parks where money for rangers will be slashed. Glacier National Park in Montana says snow ploughing to clear its famous Going-to-the-Sun Road may not happen this summer.
"It will be like watching a multiple-car pile-up on the highway that's going in slow motion," Emily Holubowich, a healthcare lobbyist who has being trying to steer Congress away from the brink on behalf of 3,000 clients, told USA Today. "It's like that old saying, 'You don't know what you've got 'til it's gone'."
Comment: He will be sorely missed, but the revolution of the mind goes on... Hasta la Victoria Siempre!