Sequester scare!

We all keep hearing incessantly about the sequester, how the spending cuts are going to cost jobs, etc. etc.  Here's President Obama's position on it (despite being the originator of the idea, if I'm not mistaken): http://www.businessinsider.com/obama-sequester-speech-virginia-newport-news-military-cuts-sequestration-2013-2#ixzz2M28nfgsE

It's going to cost jobs?  Yikes!  That's the last thing we need!

Wait a minute.  Aren't there very, very large portions of the Federal budget that don't involve productive jobs?  Yes, yes there are.  In fact, if one were exceptionally cynical, one would almost think that Mr. Obama is threatening the loss of jobs to avoid getting it passed.

Before we go any further, we need to look at the sequester as it really is.  The cuts are $1.2 trillion over ten years.  That sounds big until you think about it.  It's most definitely neither a large nor meaningful "cut," and in fact it's up for debate whether it's a cut or not.  Spending will still increase by larger and larger amounts over the next decade - assuming the U.S. doesn't default by then - while the sequester just sort of sits there as a minor slowing of the increase in spending, allowing Republican politicians to pretend they did something right and giving the Democratic ones something to moan and whine about ad nauseum.  In short, the sequester isn't even a stopgap measure, it's the epitome of feel-good legislation.  It will have almost no actual effect in the real world, and certainly won't do anything about the debt.

Now, about those jobs.  President Obama is currently claiming that the nonexistant "cuts" will cost productive jobs that everyone approves of.  This is just not so.  Senator Rand Paul - one of two current politicians that I actually like - has proposed an alternate sequester that involves exactly zero layoffs, demonstrating beyond doubt that the scaremongering about jobs is ignorant at best and dishonest at worst.  You can see the alternate plan here: http://paul.senate.gov/?p=press_release&id=716

Even still, Senator Paul has very vocally acknowledged that the spending cuts in question don't actually mean anything in terms of the debt, and has stated that the only reason he supports it is because the other Republicans don't seem to have the spine to propose anything else.