The Sequester

The Sequester is "a series of automatic, across-the-board cuts to government agencies, totaling $1.2 trillion over 10 years" (CNN). This basically means that if the government is unable to reach a deal by the predetermined deadline, then cuts will be automatically put in place, cuts that neither side really want. The sequester is said to have a detrimental impact on the national economy. 
The main problem with the sequester lies in its quick strip of the funds from certain programs rather than gradually taking away from the budget. "The sequester will mean such awful things because it forces agencies to cut indiscriminately, instead of simply stripping money from their overall budgets" (ABC). Because of this, programs don't have a proper amount of time to decide how to work around the amount of money that is stripped from their federal funding.
"The cuts are evenly split between domestic and defense programs, with half affecting defense discretionary spending and the rest affecting both mandatory and discretionary domestic spending" (Washington Post). Cuts will be given out across the board taking from defense and domestic spending. I personally believe that cutting defense spending in today's volatile world is not the best idea, especially when considering the United States' role in the world.