I'm not really sure what kind of "grifter" "double-speak" the guest and hosts of WNYC believe will be accepted by its listeners. The guest states without explanation the certain programs, e.g. medicare or medicaid are exempt from cuts to patient benefits. In the next breath she is stating that other payments under those programs will be cut by the sequester and may cause additional doctors to refuse to participate in the program. I have definitely heard such gobble-Dee-guk before. But I always wonder: What, other than patient care, is Medicare and/or Medicaid paying for?

Are the members of Congress or any other govt officials going to take a pay cut if the Sequester happens????

Was this said onair? I don't know, I was actually doing things...
The Sequestration allows Republicans to cut defense passively -
So they can avoid blame in election season, yet get an important anti-republican thing done, those defense cuts.

@Bob from Brooklyn -

Unrestrained cuts to gov't spending just push the economy back into recession. NB: last quarters 0.1% decline in GDP. Congress and the President need to concentrate on GROWING jobs first AND THEN cutting deficit. Much of our deficit would erase itself by increased tax revenues from the newly employed.

Even Tom Coburn estimates that there is $70B in yearly waste in the Defense budget, if the Pentagon could find and eliminate 4/5 of that we'd have the $500B over ten years without cutting any programs.

The language of sequestration is fascinating. We speak about it as though it's a higher power greater than ourselves, as though we can't control or stop it, when in fact (unless I'm misinformed) it is the result of an act of Congress. Can't it just be overturned by Congress if our representatives decide to in fact perform their job duties as they were elected to do? And along that line, why are we not FIRING our representatives for NOT doing their jobs?!

The timid Obama IS the re-elected Obama, just slightly less timid, nonetheless timid. What a disappointment he turned out to be!!

Cutting gvt will not slow down the economy...the gvt is the slow down

Oh John. There is something very wrong with you.

Have fun in the office.

Brian 100 billion in proposed increases for 10 years...no cuts

We should take it further and demand 10% across the board cuts every 5 or ten years. Government never has an impetus to improve its efficiency.

Bob, I am waiting for the Drone attack on the ACLU. A good start.

I have no problem with killing our enemies, Americans of not.

This seguestration is another example of the Republicans shooting themselves in the foot. They were expecting the timid Obama, not the re-elected Obama.

Veterans won't lose their health insurance, but they'll lose their retirement funding and pay increases.

Draconian cuts where where?!

You know what I'm afraid of? That drone white paper memo. Specifically, what justification will future presidents use to kill US citizens deemed 'terrorists' without any evidence.

It would be great if cuts would happen specifically to these crazy, anti-American military operations.

At this point, if this is the only way to cut spending and debt, then we have to just suck it up and let auto-cuts happen. The government is simply out of control. I am particularly in favor of cutting defense. You can't cut defense enough. It seems that cutting off their gravy train will be the only way we have any oversight on extrajudicial killings.