Over the last several months, states have been understandably preoccupied with the potential effects of federal budget sequestration on federal programs that operate through the state-federal partnership. While the ultimate budgetary impact of sequestration was estimated to be much smaller than many initially feared, it nevertheless introduced a degree of uncertainty that made planning for and running the affected programs extremely difficult. In the midst of this worry, officials in Massachusetts stepped back to take the long view, focusing not only on the impacts of sequestration on the budget, but on the longer-term impacts of sequestration and federal budget retrenchment on the economy.
