A picture is worth 1,000 words: Sequestration in perspective

While President Obama and his fellow Democrats are hyperventilating about the dire consequences of not implementing new taxes, Tad Dehaven at the Cato Institute offers this friendly reminder of the reality behind the impending budget cuts:

(Image: Cato@Liberty)

To balance the budget this year, the reduction in outlays would have to be almost 20 times larger.

One might argue that it isn’t fair to compare the cuts to total spending because sequestration barely touches entitlement spending, which is the budget’s 800-lb gorilla. I acknowledge that sequestration isn’t the ideal for cutting spending. So by all means, let’s target the whole ball of wax and dramatically increase the amount to be cut.