The White House’s proposed federal budget will harm Mississippi and Natchez-Adams County’s economy, at least at first.

The budget — which will almost certainly be heavily reworked by Congress before approval — makes sweeping changes to federal spending programs.

Proposed cuts would pull funds from many of the federal programs that benefit individual recipients, including food stamps, Medicaid.

Many of those cuts affect the poorest people in our nation. And Mississippi and Natchez-Adams County each has a high number of poor people.

Drastic cuts in these areas could be catastrophic to some of those recipients.

Unfortunately, such sudden changes may lead recipients to become desperate and turn to a life of crime as a way to make ends meet. That could be an unintended consequence of rapid changes.

We understand and appreciate the need to reduce federal spending in a logical, sound manner.

However, trying to flip back decade of poor budget logic in a one fell swoop is likely to backfire.

We hope — for the sake of our area’s economy as well as its quality of life — Congress throttles back some of the more draconian cuts.

With some careful work, they can do so in a way that gets spending better under control without pulling the financial rug out from beneath those citizens who live at or below the poverty line.