Sequestered: We’re going to feel the across-the-board pain

It doesn’t come as a surprise to many of us that the past two weekends are a pretty nice way to start spring, even if it doesn’t officially arrive until March 20.

The Rally in the 100 Acre Wood and the opening day of trout season at Montauk State Park impact a lot of Ozarks counties, and it’s a nice wakeup after a pretty dull winter that always has convenience stores, restaurants, hotels and other businesses that rely a lot on visitors ready to hear the ring of the cash register.

The rally is nice, but the river and its fishing and floating and beauty provide a spring, summer and early fall full of tourists, not to mention the fact a lot of us like to enjoy it, too.

That leads me to sequestration, one of those words that you really don’t ever remember hearing much about before, especially coming out of Washington DC, where they usually just literally pass the buck from budget to budget as we fall forevermore deeper into debt.

Not this year. This year we have heard the word sequestration for a couple months now, and Friday it hit us square in the face. We’ve been sequestered between the eyes, and we’re the ones who are going to pay for it, or actually not get paid for it is more appropriate.

I always thought sequestration simply meant property being locked up for safe keeping, or in some cases, juries getting locked up for safe keeping. There is now another twist to the phrase. The sequestration we’re talking about and suffering from these days means the U.S. Treasury is holding back an amount of money equal to the difference between the cap set in the budget and the money actually appropriated in the budget. In effect, sequestration equals across the board cuts for government because they can’t make decisions.

I am not a financial expert. I read all that on the Internet.

Anyway, let me put this in real terms. Our tourism bread and butter, the Ozark National Scenic Riverways, announced the day after Obama and the legislature sequestered us, that we should be prepared for reduced hours and services along the Current and Jacks Fork rivers. Superintendent Bill Black says the NPS wants to inform us sequesterees of the “potential impacts” as we make our “vacation plans.”

Visits to the ONSR now come with a warning label. Black spoke about reduced hours and services due to the loss of $327,000 from the budget. Interpretive programs, evening campfire programs Round Spring Cave tours? Sequestered. Trash collection, water service, and restroom janitorial services eliminated or curtailed for smaller campgrounds? Sequestered.

Heritage Day, Alley Spring Independence Day Celebration, Ozark Dinner Theater, and Haunting in the Hills are cancelled.

Makes you want to take a trip to the riverways, right?

Recently I wrote a column about the fact that 1.4 million visitors to the ONSR spent $65.3 million one year. Now this.

Our dysfunctional national government is going through sequestration, as the Democrats and Republicans point fingers and make a decision to do nothing. Meanwhile, down here in the Ozarks, we’re wondering how many of those 1.4 million visitors are going to heed Mr. Black’s caution and make plans to avoid any park or facility that has the word national attached to it.

We need to sequester Mr. Obama and the legislature until they can make some decisions and get us out of this mess.