Senator Warner has consistently highlighted the devastating impact that sequestration would have on our defense industry and national security.  Today, at a Senate Budget Committee Hearing, he noted that its impact would extend far beyond defense.

“[On] the idea of furloughing a meat or poultry inspector… what happens when not enough food gets to the marketplace, and the food prices go up overall?” Senator Warner said.

He asked Hunter Rawlings, head of the American Association of Universities, about how sequestration cuts could impact vital medical and scientific research at universities like Virginia Commonwealth, Old Dominion, or Virginia Tech.  “Isn’t it true that you may have multiple years of research, where you need that last year to get valid results, but where [due to sequester] you won’t be able to issue that last year’s contract, and consequently will flush the prior years’ work?”

Mr. Rawlings agreed.  “That is correct, and with that scientific loss goes something else.  Most of these researchers, on NIH grants, [are] running small businesses…some of them have 4 person, some of them 12 person, some of them 25 person companies.  So what do you do when you get this cut?  You let go of your workers… I had one professor tell me that his lab is now suffering from sequester fatigue before the sequester has even begun, because NIH is holding back on giving the grants.”

National Institute of Health grants pay for research into disease treatment and prevention, human growth and development, mental disorders, and more.

Senator Warner described the proposed sequester cuts as “Stupid on steroids…When we look at this top-line number, we look at it as if it’s a rational set of cuts, when in effect this was set up to be the most irrational.  No rational group of folks would allow this to happen, yet we’re three days from allowing it.”