Mayor Edwin M. Lee issued the following statement regarding the potential $26.54 million local impact to San Francisco from effects of Federal sequestration:

“Congress must find a way to responsibly reduce our Federal deficit without enacting harmful, across-the-board cuts that could devastate our national and local economies. These automatic seven to 10 percent reductions in Federal funding for services that matter to San Franciscans – services such as job training, disaster recovery, housing and services for our most vulnerable populations, military base clean up and maintaining our national parks – will be devastating to our national and local economy. 

Our estimates show that sequestration will, at a minimum, cut $26.54 million in direct Federal funding to San Francisco. We would see an annual $2 million cut to Medicare, $1 million cut to housing services for people with HIV/AIDS, and over $5 million cut to education. These sequestration cuts would result in the loss of tens of millions of dollars to our social safety net programs. These cuts simply cannot occur.

President Obama has put forth a plan that curbs the deficit while preserving these critical investments in job growth and economic development. It is important for us all to reach out to Congress and insist that they work together to pull us back from this fiscal cliff.” 

Cities and metropolitan areas represent nearly 90 percent of the nation’s wage and salary income and 86 percent of the nation’s employment. Mayor Lee and the U.S. Conference of Mayors expressed their strong opposition to sequestration cuts and the local impact they would have on U.S. cities, communities and residents, and released a bi-partisan letter with signatures of mayors from across the country to strongly encourage Congress to find a bi-partisan and balanced solution to achieve deficit reduction that facilitates, and does not undermine, economic growth in the nation’s cities and metropolitan areas.