Sequester-geddon?

To hear the Obama administration, the Sequester budget cuts will be economic Armageddon, crippling first responders, the military, and the economy as a whole. When you look past the rhetoric and examine the actual numbers, here is what they show according to the Congressional Budget Office:

* The $85 billion “spending cut” is actually a reduction of budget authority, not budget outlays.

* Budget outlays will only come down $44 billion.

* $44 billion is 1.25 percent of the government’s $3.6 trillion budget and 1/4 of 1 percent of GDP ($15.8 trillion).

* The outlay reduction is only half of the Sequester’s  budget-authority savings, the rest of which will only take effect in future years (assuming congress and the administration don’t tamper with it).

* All these “cuts” are to a rising baseline budget.

* Big picture, the Sequester only slows the growth of spending; it doesn’t cut the level of spending at all.

But it’s all a matter of perspective, I guess. To a lot of politicians, cutting even the rate of government increased spending to any fraction of a degree is pretty much the end of the world.

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See Larry’s Kudlow’s op-ed.