This article talks about an enemy within the United States that could potentially hamper the progress made since The Great Recession. The enemy is known as "the sequester." This refers to a bundle of cuts that will be made to the federal budget on March 1. In August of 2011 Congress adopted the sequester in an attempt to get a deal done to reduce the deficit. Many people believe that if Congress does not strike a deal before March 1 and the cuts go through it could put the economy is reverse. The huge problem with the sequester is that Congress took a recess and it comes to end just four days before the deadline. Experts do not believe that a deal will get done in those four days and the cuts will go into effect. When the cuts go through there will have to be a 8% drop in defense spending. This means that there could potentially be 1.4 million jobs lost due to the cuts. Of course, Democrats refuse to cut social programs and Republicans refuse to accept tax increases. This means that a deal getting done is highly unlikely and once again Congress will let America suffer in the name of ideology.
http://www.economist.com/news/united-states/21572190-ships-lie-uselessly-anchor-and-lay-offs-loom-deep-congress-imposed-spending-cuts-look
I'm not really familiar with how congress get together and set dates for things, but why is their recess until four days before the cut? Why are they not able to change the time period when they meet for that? The cuts could be bad for the economy, so they should tackle this problem sooner rather than later. If at all I guess, since they article doesn't believe they will reach an agreement.
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