President Obama, in his State of the Union Address, pressured Congress to find a way to avoid the sequester. In the President's radio address this past weekend, he said the sequester would be "a huge blow to middle-class families and our economy as a whole." The President’s senior adviser Dan Pfeiffer warned that "devastating" sequester cuts would "imperil our economy, our national security, (and) vital programs that middle class families depend on."
So, how much will the sequester cut from the budget you ask? This year, 2013, the Federal Government is expected to spend $3.8 trillion dollars. The government will collect $2.9 trillion in taxes. The difference, $901.4 billion, will be added to our our current 16.3 trillion dollar debt.
The sequester, as it turns out, cuts a whole $85 billion dollars in 2013 or 2.24% of total spending. The defense budget for 2013 is 900 billion dollars. The sequester will require a 42.7 billion dollar cut in defense spending or 4.74% from their budget. Now here is what’s hard to take, the federal government has been growing their budget 4.64% on average each year since 2007.
So, to put this in perspective, if you made 50,000 dollars last year and were told your pay increase this year would only be $1,200 instead of $2,320 how “devastating” would that be? You might be disappointed but it certainly wouldn't put your household finances in “economic peril!”
