Wisconsin awaiting budget cuts details

MADISON, Wis. (AP) - With massive federal spending cuts due to take effect, Wisconsin officials said Friday they need to know more about them in order to take action.

The nation's top leaders failed to avoid the steep cuts by Friday's deadline, and President Barack Obama signed an order that authorizes the government to begin cutting $85 billion from the federal budget.

Wisconsin is waiting for more information before gauging any actual impact statewide, said Cullen Werwie, spokesman for Gov. Scott Walker.

"Governor Walker asked President Obama to offer a more reasonable alternative to the arbitrary cuts contained in the sequestration plan," Werwie said in a release. "So far the President has resisted offering a reasonable alternative."

Obama said the cuts said could hurt the American people and have a ripple effect throughout the nation's wobbling economy. In a statement, Obama also warned the reductions will soon result in furlough notices to government employees and scaled-back federal spending on defense contracts and domestic programs.

In a state-by-state estimate released Sunday by the White House, it showed Wisconsin will have fewer control towers and military personnel, as well as less environmental protection funding and school aid.

The state agriculture department called the White House's estimate too broad and lacked specifics.

"It's difficult to predict what the impact of sequester cuts would have on Wisconsin agriculture because no one knows exactly what the cuts are," said Raechelle Cline, a spokeswoman for the Wisconsin Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection.

Cline said the cuts will also lead to furloughs at federally inspected meat plants in Wisconsin, which has 111 federal plants and about 270 state plants. Jobs at state-inspected plants will not be affected.

Bob Lang, director of Wisconsin's non-partisan Legislative Fiscal Bureau, said it may take months for state departments to feel the pain before federal agencies tell them exactly what programs will be cut and how much.

John Peacock, research director at Wisconsin Council on Children and Families Health Care, said the cuts will directly affect children from low-income families because they'll have less access to certain federal health services, such as nutrition programs. More broadly, Peacock feared the state's jobs and economy will suffer more as a result.

The cuts also mean that air traffic control towers at eight Wisconsin airports will close.

Peter Moll, airport director at Oshkosh-based Wittman Regional Airport, said losing its tower translates into more safety risks for several on-site flight schools and less air traffic volume. Moll expects the airport to close the tower in April, but its other operations will not to be directly affected.

Robert Kraig, executive director of Citizen Action of Wisconsin, a Milwaukee-based liberal advocacy group, said as the automatic cuts now become reality, it may push lawmakers to think seriously about how to minimize the impact rather than blame each other.

"The good news is that it's a building storm rather than a skyfall," Kraig said of the cuts.