"The sequester is now nine days away.

So happens next Friday? The Pentagon may begin the furlough process this week. Reuters news agency said Congress will be notified that 800,000 employees will be placed on unpaid leave for up to 22 days before Sept. 30, 2013. (The law requires Congress be told 45 days before the furloughs, and individual employees be given 30 days notice.)

At Haskell Indian Nations University in Lawrence, Kansas, not only will there be budget cuts, but there is a plan surfacing to boost student fees by some 230 percent. Native American students are not required to pay tuition, but do pay student fees that total $215 per semester. Those fees would jump to $715 to boost Haskell’s budget.

Other federal Indian programs will start to see more detailed budget numbers after the sequester officially begins.

One rub in all of this is the time involved. All of the cuts required by the sequester have to occur before Sept. 30, making their impact worse."

Get the Story:
Federal budget sequestration is unappealing, unattractive, and now nine days away (Mark Trahant 2/20)

Related Stories:
Mark Trahant: Indian Country must draw on lessons from past (2/19)
Mark Trahant: State of Indian Nations offers a 'real possibility' (2/14)
Mark Trahant: Indian Country set to feel pain with sequester (2/13)
Mark Trahant: Indian Country loses with budget sequestration (2/11)
Mark Trahant: Back and forth on a deal to avoid sequestration (2/8)
Mark Trahant: Saving money by moving to cashless society (2/4)
Mark Trahant: Government shrinking even without sequester (1/31)
Mark Trahant: Sequester will tear apart tribal college funding (1/30)
Mark Trahant: Medicaid will help Indian health system grow (1/29)
Mark Trahant: Indian Health Service faces devastating cuts (1/28)
Mark Trahant: Senate is best hope for Indian Country budget (1/24)
Mark Trahant: House Republicans shuffling the deck on debt (1/23)
Mark Trahant: Budget lessons from the Indian health system (1/22)
Mark Trahant: Republicans and old debts to Native Americans (1/18)
Mark Trahant: Republicans versus Republicans on budget talks (1/17)
Mark Trahant: Our big bad ugly budget problems can be fixed (1/16)
Mark Trahant: Why the fight over debt limit matters so much (1/15)
Mark Trahant: Counting on tribes to bail out the government (1/14)
Mark Trahant: Tribal leaders should prepare for shrinking budgets (1/7)
Mark Trahant: Deal makes another fiscal cliff debate inevitable (1/2)