Neither Party Seems Willing To Budge on Sequester

Which might be the best we can hope for

The era of austerity may have arrived.

President Barack Obama and congressional Republicans are dug in on the sequester, and there are no signs of a quick fix to the $85 billion in across-the-board spending cuts that both sides say they disdain.

That could certainly change after a few bad months of economic numbers or a public outcry. But until average Americans feel the cuts, neither side looks willing to budge on the key issue of revenues without some game-changing factor. And neither party is inclined to risk a government shutdown on sequester politics.

"I don't think anyone quite understands how the sequester is really going to work," House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) conceded in an interview aired Sunday on NBC's "Meet the Press."