Inside the beltway, there is a pervasive sense of impending doom. The rest of the country may not much care, but sequestration is here. According to warnings by the Obama administration, failure to avert these automatic spending cuts will lead to planes falling from the skies, bridges collapsing, federal penitentiaries moving to a voluntary self-incarceration policy, and the Jersey Shore returning to the airwaves. Nevermind that if these things actually mattered to the president he could have fought to prevent them.
But on one issue there should certainly be a sense of doom: defense cuts and competition with China. While President Obama may have suddenly discovered newfound appreciation for naval shipbuilding, he had no problem scaling back the Navy’s shipbuilding program during his first term. Sequestration on top of the hundreds of billions of dollars in defense cuts already on the books threatens to hollow out the military in ways that will be detrimental to U.S. national security.
