Mark Pocan's smart sequester fix

Accurately describing the March 1 "sequestration" as a "budget tornado" that will undermine jobs, education and health care in Wisconsin, Congressman Mark Pocan is proposing smart alternatives to dumb cuts.

"We've already seen some of the impacts, because you have to plan," says Pocan, who has been working with Wisconsin Citizen Action to highlight the impact that sequester cuts would have on the Badger state. "You just can't keep punting and not deal with it."

Pocan's proposal is a simple one: Congress should do its job.

Instead of across-the-board cuts that will take the good with the bad, and that will be particularly damaging to northern industrial and agricultural states such as Wisconsin, the Madison Democrat says that the House and Senate should come up with a plan for making appropriate and responsible cuts while identifying sources for the revenue that can be used to promote economic growth.

"It's like taking a meat ax to the budget instead of a scalpel, and its effects are very real," Pocan says of the sequester.

Pocan is prepared to do the smart budgeting that will best serve Wisconsin.