Phoenix’s mayor is in Washington, D.C. today. He joined a bipartisan group at the release of a new study on how automatic budget cuts would affect the country. 

The Budget Control Act of 2011 created a so-called supercommittee that looked at reducing the deficit and increasing revenues, but it repeatedly failed to reach an agreement, meaning that automatic, widespread cuts called budget sequestration are scheduled to hit in January.

A study by Dr. Stephen Fuller of George Mason University estimates the cuts could mean more than 2 million jobs lost, about half of them in defense.

The study was commissioned by the Aerospace Industries Assocation. Marion Blakey is the group’s president. “This is not simply a military problem," Blakey said. "It’s not a defense industry problem. It’s not a labor problem. It’s not a big state problem, not a small state problem, not a Democratic problem, not a Republican problem. It’s an American problem."

Speakers at the event also included New Hampshire Senators Kelly Ayotte and Jeanne Shaheen, San Diego Mayor Jerry Sanders, and Phoenix Mayor Greg Stanton.

Stanton says the automatic cuts would be a huge blow, "to not only the aerospace industry, which is one of our leading industries in the state of Arizona, but also all of the other domestic cuts that would be affected. That is the number one threat to our local economy.”

The study found Arizona could lose almost 50,000 jobs, about 35,000 of them in the defense industry.

Listen to Nick's report.

Listen to KJZZ's Nick Blumberg and Dennis Lambert discuss this story.

Updated 7/17/12 at 1:00pm