The worst thing that could happen for certain a political party is … nothing. All these cuts are pure speculation. The administration controls who, what, where, and when of the cuts and if Obama wants to whack Head Start to gain political points in the 2014 elections, he won't be the first president that choose power over the common good. Of course his party isn't exactly known for their economic literacy or honesty.

Witness the former Speaker of the House Pelosi's claim of 500 million America jobs lost without the stimulus back in 2009. Fast forward to 2013 and Rep. Maxine Waters, long time liar from California and her claim ""over 170 million jobs" could be lost due to sequestration". The Republicans have their share of dummies but when it comes to economics these two can't be taken seriously, though it's fun to watch them try to extract their feet from their mouth.

This approximately 2.3% "cut" is actually a reduction in the projected rate of growth in government spending. As the "unitary executive" (a term that mysteriously disappeared from public discourse when DubYa left office) Obama has it in his power to make these "cuts" as painless or painful as he wishes, and he seems to wish to make them as painful as possible. Just like the county officials who close libraries and parks, and threaten to lay off firefighters when a bond issue fails at the polls, this president is ready to "teach us a lesson" about how essential every cent that flows into DC really is. A president who cares about the welfare of the nation would be working to make this reduction as invisible as possible. This president has shown time and again that what he really cares about is amassing as much power in the hands of the Federal Government as possible. Making 2.3% a life or death proposition will soften people up for that ongoing power grab.

All the working men and women in the US took a real 2% cut in income this year due to the expiration of the payroll tax holiday. The least we can expect from the federal government is to absorb a 2% decrease in its projected spending without government officials acting like spoiled brats denied a candy bar before supper.

What so-called sequestration means to me:

It means that our political leaders have finally conceived a manner in which the outflow of revenue can be slowed without damage to their individual stature or credibility.

Now, instead of "us against them" (where "us" is regular people), it's now "them against them" (where "them" are agencies which receive the cash).

Every "us" wins.

I deeply appreciate Crosscut's legislative coverage. Mr. Stang's reports are far more informative than anything provided by The News Tribune.

Nevertheless he neglects to mention the sequester's devastating impact on federally funded lower-income- housing programs. These were already severely downsized by attacks that began with the Reagan Administration and have continued relentlessly under both parties ever since.

For some local details, including a brief interview with the head of the Tacoma Housing Authority, see "How Sequester's Sword Slashes Vital Programs for Lower-Income People" in http://lorenbliss.typepad.com/loren-bliss-outside-agitators-notebook/2013/03/economics-below-the-salt-bad-news-slightly-better-news.html

Approximately 600 fewer households will not receive a Section 8 housing voucher in King County over the next year due to sequestration. The average income of a family on the program is $13, 327. The likely result is that many of these families will find themselves homeless. This has high long-term costs to our communities – especially to children. School districts reported more than 4,400 homeless children in local schools during the 2010-2011 school year, a sharp increase from the prior year. Children who are homeless or couch surfing show significantly lower academic achievement and higher drop-out rates.

Cuts to the military can have benign side effects: less industrial-strength pollution in Puget Sound; quieter skies; less vehicle use and impact on the highway infrastructure; fewer lower-income families migrating into the state following low-pay military contract work. Not to mention, that we all have been paying in our federal taxes to support programs unfriendly to humans everywhere and the health of the planet such as the F-35 half-trillion dollar boondoggle. Maybe if we squeak loud enough, some of the savings can trickle down to domestic programs including housing and education; the alternative would be to continue to burn money on F-35s for no earthly good.

Yet, McDermott, Murray, Cantwell, and the federal bureaucracy downtown apparently will not suffer any layoffs, furloughs, cutbacks, and/or reductions. Are there not close to 200,000 new federal employees under Obama? 16,000 more projected IRS duty for Obamacare?? "SEQUESTER ME, BRO!!" and let the misplaced priorities be exposed for all to see!

This is the idiotic thing about sequestration. If layoffs cause the unemployment rate in a state to rise above 9%, then the unemployed in the state will again be able to give the unemployed 99 weeks of unemployment benefits. So they are throwing people out of work and thereby increasing expenditures on unemployment insurance.

That's our government doing it. Don't you love it?

You can rationalize any nimber of reason, such as these are increases in last years budget, spending is still higher and a million other reasons this isn't bad. Tell that to the furloughed workers, the mother kicked off of WIC, the closed day care centers. All this reasoning doesn't amount to a hill of beans when people in just one state are impacted like this. This isn't even the worse case scenario. California and Virginia get hit the hardest with Virginia losing 650,000 please explain why this ok to these people. The GOPT refuses to go along with Simpson Bowles as they said they would. Balanced approaced cuts and revenue. To say we just have a spending proble is naive, we also have a revenue peoblem. It takes both cuts and revenues to close this gap. Austerity is NOT an option

You can blame it on the President, his administration controls who gets the axe and how much waste is allowed to be continued. The Democrats want to have jobs cut hurt and you'll see more of them. They aren't interested in trimming fat or having an efficient government, they just want to maintain their status as the leading power brokers and their grip on the reins of government.

The idea that this is a plan of the president's is a well established fallacy based on erroneous reporting by Bob Woodward. Similar to his erroneous reporting of receiving threats from the White House and his well-known inaccurate slash job on John Belushi that has been refuted by everyone he interviewed.