Hey, politics watchers: Are you ready for another utterly avoidable budget crisis with the potential to arbitrarily wreck the economy? Well, good news! The "sequester"—a trillion dollars in spending cuts that no one actually wants—is barreling towards us, and apparently no one intends to stop it. Matthew Yglesias breaks down what you need to know in a Slate column appropriately headlined, "The Idiocy of Sequestration." The highlights:
- What sequester is: A set of broad, across-the-board spending cuts. While Social Security, Medicaid, and a few select anti-poverty programs are spared, almost everything else is getting a hefty chunk taken out—16.3% for military programs, and 9.2% for discretionary ones.