Serious question: what did the sequester that was such a big deal cause? Is it still going? I'm insanely lazy so I don't want to do any research.
It causes annual budget cuts to all federal agencies to the tune of a few percent per year. At first, the changes aren't very noticeable, but they build on themselves, and if you have to work with a federal agency on a multi-year project, funding becomes a concern because most of that agency doesn't really know what is going to get cut moving forward. The whole idea sucks because there is no input as to what gets funded and what doesn't. It's just across the board cuts to everything except for the golden geese, like defense and entitlements.
This is the way its always been and always will be with government contracts.
So let's just keep sequestering it a few clicks every year and we can ween some of the fat out, no?
The only problem is that we are cutting infrastructure. We already live in a nation where 50% of all bridges are structurally deficient, we have the 7th highest cancer rate in the world, our energy and internet corridors need massive improvement to move forward, etc. It is much better to not fund a program at all than it is to underfund it. Our federal agencies used to develop massive projects like the Hoover Dam and the interstate system. Now, they are relegated to providing subsidized funding on small scale projects, and even the future of that funding is questionable. The problem with sequestration is that it treats all agencies as equally important so they should all face equal cuts without regard to what it is they are actually doing or what obligations they already have moving forward. A system that relied entirely on congressional earmarks would a lot be more efficient, as scary as that sounds.