Two years ago, Congress and President Obama passed the Budget Control Act, including the sequester—many of them believing it would never go into effect because the appointed “super committee” would make more targeted cuts before that ever happened.
Of course, being Washington, the targeted cuts never happened.
But the specter of sequester remained—and with a national debt approaching $15 trillion, we had to make sure at least some spending would be cut one way or another.
"Rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others. I do not add 'within the limits of the law' because law is often but the tyrant's will, and always so when it violates the rights of the individual." Thomas Jefferson
"If people can’t trust not only the executive branch but also don’t trust Congress, and don’t trust federal judges, to make sure that we’re abiding by the Constitution with due process and rule of law, then we’re going to have some problems here." - Barack Obama, June 7, 2013