Thoughts on the sequester cuts.

The sequester cuts would offer a preview of even deeper cuts that would result from a fixed debt ceiling or a Balanced Budget Amendment, both of which are ideas manufactured by conservatives.

If you think families tied to the military factories are about to face some pain now, wait until that debt ceiling issue comes up again in late Spring of this year.  See Macroeconomic Advisers blog on their forecast on the sequestration cuts:

• "The sequestration would reduce our forecast of growth during 2013 by 0.6 percentage point (to 2.0%) but then, assuming investors expect the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) to delay raising the federal funds rate, boost growth by 0.1 percentage point (to 3.4%) in 2014. 

• By the end of 2014, the sequestration would cost roughly 700,000 jobs (including reductions in armed forces), pushing the civilian unemployment rate up ¼ percentage point, to 7.4%.  The higher unemployment would linger for several years."

Personally, I think they're underestimating the impact, because these are annual cuts for the entire decade.  But for argument's sake, if $1.2T in cuts over the next decade is bad, then $1T a year in cuts (projected shortfall for 2013) is A LOT MORE BAD (excuse the terrible English).

So uhm, I think we're actually witnessing the destruction of the Republican Party (and the eventual rebirth of a pre-Reagan moderate group) actually.