It turns out that "budget sequestration," portrayed as an evenhanded way to spur bipartisan negotiations over budget deficits, is actually a dagger aimed at defense spending. The president and other top administration officials have said the automatic spending cuts required by sequestration are "bad policy."
But they still support "sequestration" as a political tool instead of proposing needed changes that might fulfill its original purpose: pushing Democrats and Republicans into realistic budget negotiations. The whole sequestration process is something of a sham. Here's background for the 99.99 percent of Americans who aren't budget wonks.
Last summer, Congress passed the Budget Control Act (BCA), raising the federal debt ceiling and pledging to cut budget deficits by at least $2.1 trillion from 2012 to 2021. Of that, cuts of $900 billion were included in the BCA — with half from defense. Congress then created a "supercommittee" of 12 of its members to achieve the remaining $1.2 trillion of deficit reduction through more spending cuts or tax increases.