BILL NUMBER: SJR 3 INTRODUCED BILL TEXT INTRODUCED BY Senator Knight FEBRUARY 21, 2013 Relative to federal spending cuts. LEGISLATIVE COUNSEL'S DIGEST SJR 3, as introduced, Knight. Sequestration. This measure would urge the President and Congress of the United States to avert federal spending cuts known as "sequestration" to, among other reasons, protect the California and national economies. Fiscal committee: no. WHEREAS, Thousands of workers, countless families, and entire communities throughout California will be severely and cruelly affected by automatic, across-the-board federal spending cuts estimated at $1.2 trillion over the next 10 years and known as "sequestration"; and WHEREAS, The impact of a $1.2 trillion across-the-board, forced federal spending cuts proposed under sequestration will have serious and deleterious effects on our local, regional, state, and national economies, and jeopardize hundreds of thousands of high-wage, high-skill aerospace and other defense-related jobs, nondefense jobs, and critical social service programs in education, housing, health care, and other human service programs throughout the nation; and WHEREAS, The sequestration spending cuts to over 1,000 government programs would shrink defense and nondefense discretionary spending and be devastating to the California and national economies; and WHEREAS, Due to our unique combination of geography, cutting edge technological industries, and manufacturing capabilities, California is second in the United States for federal defense spending and provides vital services to our brave men and women serving in uniform around the world, and a cut to the defense budget would dramatically reduce the provision of those services and risk the safety of our troops; and WHEREAS, Sequestration cuts would not only hurt California, but every state, thus threatening another national economic recession; and WHEREAS, Over 2.14 million jobs are projected to be lost in the United States, including 225,464 jobs lost in California, if the sequestration cuts are triggered; and WHEREAS, An estimated $215 billion reduction in the nation's gross domestic product, including an almost $23 billion reduction in California's gross state product are projected, if the sequestration cuts are triggered; and WHEREAS, A long-term, bipartisan compromise that averts sequestration will protect the California and national economies and provide a balanced and thoughtful budget solution; now, therefore, be it Resolved by the Senate and the Assembly of the State of California, jointly, That the Legislature urges the President and Congress of the United States to avert federal spending cuts known as "sequestration" to protect the California and national economies; and be it further Resolved, That the Secretary of the Senate transmit copies of this resolution to the President and Vice President of the United States, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, the Minority Leader of the House of Representatives, the Majority Leader of the United States Senate, the Minority Leader of the United States Senate, and to each Senator and Representative from California in the Congress of the United States.