COLUMBIA, SC (WACH) -- The South Carolina National Guard could be facing federal spending cuts come March 1st.
According to Major General Robert Livingston those cuts will directly effect the readiness state's National Guard.
"We're cutting back 20% on our maintenance of our aircraft and our wheel vehicles so our overall readiness is going to go down fairly quickly," said Livingston.
While Livingston worries about cuts that will limit training and support for domestic emergencies, the University of South Carolina economist Dr. Bill Hauk said military cuts will impact more than just the people in uniform.
"These workers they get their paychecks they have dinner at a restaurant in their community or they go to their favorite shops and buy clothes and so forth ...well if they are having to cut back because their paychecks are being cut back ...well this has a lot of knock off effects to the rest of the community," said Hauk.
Right now there are roughly 1,800 full time South Carolina National Guard members and a furlough would effect more than half of them.
"We really don't come up with a permanent solution, all were doing is hurting people, you know sometimes it's better just to say lets cut the workforce and get our budget under control," said Livingston.
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