With Debt Deal, Congress Abdicated Its Responsibilities - The Atlantic

Sequestration: If the super committee fails, automatic across-the-board spending cuts would commence, hitting the entire domestic discretionary budget, payments to Medicare providers, farm subsidies, and other smaller subsidies. The cuts would not touch Social Security, Medicaid, food stamps, jobless benefits, or veterans' pensions. And the across-the-board cuts have to be dollar-for-dollar defense and nondefense, meaning arbitrary cuts in military, homeland security, and diplomatic outreach in a post-9/11 world. That's a first, and it takes the standard legislative process entirely out of deciding the nation's year-by-year necessities and funding them accordingly. That means no priorities.

With Debt Deal, Congress Abdicated Its Responsibilities - The Atlantic

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