Alarm bells are ringing in Washington. They are difficult to hear over the din of the U.S. presidential election, but aural alerts are sounding as the prospect of $1.2 trillion in automatic, mandatory federal budget cuts over nine years, beginning with the fiscal 2013 budget, grows more real. Elected officials, political appointees, civil servants, lobbyists and special interest groups all are worried about the across-the-board budget cuts known as “sequestration” and the possible short- and long-term ramifications.
The story behind sequestration is long and sordid, but basically a bipartisan congressional “super committee” late last year failed to identify $1.5 trillion in specific deficit reduction targets for fiscal year 2012, which began in October 2011, through fiscal year 2021. The Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction’s inability to overcome the Republican vs. Democrat dynamic triggered sequestration under the Budget Control Act. Unless Congress acts to halt seq…
