I have heard varying accounts of the effects of sequestration on the economy. On the one hand I keep hearing that it will not actually result in any cuts, but on the other hand I have seen people say where there will be cuts this year in various budgets. I have also heard people say that they know people who work for the government and will be put on furlough for one day a week for the foreseeable future. That would be a 20% Pay cut. Which is it? I have seen a number that says the budget will only increase 6.9% instead of 7% in the future. I have also seen where the budget deficit in the next 10 years would be 2.5 trillion and now it will only be 2.4 trillion.
afaik it's an 85 billion dollar reduction, not in spending from last year, but from where spending would otherwise have been this year. government spending is still increasing, but it's increasing by 85 billion less than what would have occurred if the sequester-apocalypse had not occurred. you can bet your bottom dollar their will be MASSIVE cuts in service because of this, not because the government needs that extra 85 billion to function properly but because the bureaucrats are going to want the public to be massively affected by these so called cuts and hence clamorous to have the spigot of government spending unblocked so that government spending can flow forth once again and bathe us all in it's magnificent splendor
... just as the State has no money of its own, so it has no power of its own - Albert Jay Nock
also a reduction in hours worked would not be a reduction in pay, per se, since when you hear 'pay cut' you generally think a reduction in pay per hour as opposed to total pay. at least i do. but that's more of a semantic point.
this graph makes it look like spending is decreasing
In a nutshell: It is the circus part of the Bread and Circuses. The cuts amount to 1/10 of 1% of an projected increase.
The reasons for all of this foolishness go like this:
Republicans and Democrats want to get votes from old people by giving free stuff to old people. The issue is that investors are becoming increasingly skeptical about the US Federal Government's ability to pay in a currency that some value. Both Republicans and Democrats AND OLD PEOPLE know that the whole sytem is beginning to crumble. So the only weapon the Republicans have is to take future money that would go to welfare bums and send it to old welfare bums. The Democrats on the other hand want this money not to go to old welfare bums but to welfare bums that are friends of theirs. (I left the military-intelligence-security complex out as both parties fall over themselves to support it.) So to keep old voters occupied and not be thinking that the system is falling apart the Republicans offer the old folks their voice in stiffing the other welfare bums.