Some 500 Fort Hood federal employees and contractors are expected to be impacted by automatic spending cuts from Washington.

Shareef Valentine, a disabled vet and federal employee, expects to get smaller paychecks or lose his job entirely. He and his wife help troops with their medical needs and paperwork.

"How much more do I have to sacrifice?" Valentine said. "We chose to come here and take care of the troops. We make less money, but we love our jobs. We love what we do.
It feels like we are being punished for that."

U.S. Reps. John Carter, R-Round Rock, and Roger Williams, R-Weatherford, visited Fort Hood Friday, to announce a plan to lessen the blow of the sequester cuts.

"Good programs are going to be cut," Williams said. "Good people are going to be furloughed, and I personally blame President Obama and his failed leadership. After all he is the one who came up with this idea of the sequester as a temporary solution to another fiscal crisis in 2011."

Carter said he'll file a bill to help the military survive the cuts. It would give military leaders the option of moving funds around with Congress's consent.

"This would give the Army and all the military a much better position to operate on," Carter said.

Members of the service community around Fort Hood expressed concern their businesses would suffer as an indirect result of the federal cuts. Their customers would have less money in their pockets.