Sequester Shocker: It Feels Like Nothing's Changed

It's been over a month since the automatic federal spending cuts
known as "the sequester" kicked in and Reason TV's Kennedy reports
from the suddenly-mean streets of Washington, D.C.

Before sequestration began on March 1, President Barack
Obama warned that budget trims of up to $85 billion in 2013 would
force brutal and devastating shutdowns of programs related to
everything from vaccination to school
lunches. The director of the National
Zoo told
the Washington Post he feared he might have to shut
down popular exhibits featuring lions and tigers. 

Homeland Security Secretary Janet
Napolitano told
travelers to expect much longer lines at airports
due to cuts for the Transportation Security Administration (TSA).
The White House even
cancelled tours of the president's home.

So just how brutal is post-sequester life in the nation’s
capital now that as much as 2 percent of annual federal spending is
on the chopping block?

About 2 minutes. Produced by Joshua Swain. Written by Kennedy
and Nick Gillespie.

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For Reason's coverage of sequestration, go here.

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Covered at Reason 24/7: Sequestration Fearmongering Failing

The “Administration That Cried Wolf” is
now reaping the consequences. As the sequestration drags on, more
and more Americans are wondering what the big deal was about the
cuts.

Via
Greg Sargent at The Washington Post:

A
new McClatchy-Marist poll finds that the percentage of
Americans who don’t believe the sequester cuts are hurting the
economy has actually jumped 13 points over the last month,
while the percentage who think they are damaging the economy is
going down:

When it comes to the impact of the automatic spending cuts on
the economy, 40 percent of adults nationally say they have had no
effect on the economy. 36 percent believe they have had a negative
impact while 14 percent say the sequester cuts have had a positive
one. 10 percent are unsure.

There has been an increase in the proportion of Americans who
think these across-the-board spending cuts have had little impact
on the nation’s economy.

That wasn’t what the president was hoping to hear.

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Sequestration Cuts Mean Unemployment For Workers At Washington Nuclear Site

When Travis Stephens first heard the word "sequestration," he thought it was nothing to worry about.

"They said the sequestration -- they talked about it a year ago and everybody said it will never get to that," Stephens said. "It's pretty frustrating. I don't fully understand it."

Stephens said that he doesn't pay much attention to politics, but he does know the regular budgeting process has been dysfunctional during the years of Barack Obama's presidency and that sequestration is a symptom of that dysfunction. The cuts kicked in last month and forced the federal government to find $85 billion worth of savings this year. Now Stephens is out of a job.

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