So the sequester is now law and boy has it ever been amusing to watch the course it has taken. Seriously, the fear it is being abused to create is astoundingly funny! Of course what is even more laughable is that anyone might have thought it would actually work to deal with spending. The easy point to make about that is it is not possible to address a deficit when all you do is reduce the increase in spending. You have to actually decrease spending to decrease spending, instead of spending more, but not as much as you originally planned to do. That however is not the reason I find it humorous.
No, the reason I laugh at the concept of the sequester is it is a horrible negotiation tactic. It was supposed to be a kind of nuclear deterrent that would force talks and compromise, because no one wants the bomb to go off. The problem is that in a negotiation both sides should have a nuclear deterrent that neither want to use. Instead they created a deterrent neither of them could control, which practically promised its use. Everyone can claim, and is claiming, it is not their fault for it happening and is just blaming the other side. At least if it were one side's nuclear deterrent then we would know who set it off, and have their reasoning for why they felt the negotiations were dead and it had to go off. Now we just get equally (ir)responsible people blaming the other guy because 'surely we would never want to do that.'
Really people, be more cynical about this. If nothing else it will show you that Washington is a comedic stage filled with actors too incompetent to even hit each other in the face with a pie. (Maybe that would help the debate; some meringue in the nostrils.)
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