Aug. 04--MANATEE -- A projected $55 billion in federal spending cuts in January, has some predicting "havoc in the skies" with 106 U.S. airports losing traffic controllers and shutting down.

Among those airports listed in a recent article by the Center for American Progress, a public policy research and advocacy organization. was Sarasota Bradenton International Airport.

SRQ "is right on the cusp of being one of the airports to lose air traffic control," the article said, blaming Rep. Vern Buchanan, R-Sarasota for his votes on the sequestration package and the debt limit.

The automatic cuts are slated to take effect Jan. 2 because of the failure of a bipartisan congressional panel to come up with a plan to cut the deficit by $1.2 trillion over 10 years.

But SRQ CEO Rick Piccolo said he isn't worried about potential FAA cuts since "the president hasn't said what is being cut.

"I'd be very surprised if they closed the airport and did away with air traffic control," he said. "This is one person's belief of what could happen. It is just one possibility of a million possibilities depending on what happens."

Piccolo said he saw the report on Thursday and called it "alarmist."

He hasn't discussed the issue with airport board members.

Politics is definitely involved, he said, because many of the airports discussed in the article "have an R next to it."

Copyright 2012 - The Bradenton Herald, Fla.