It’s 2023 -- and this is America 10 years after the first across-the-board federal budget cuts known as sequestration went into effect. They went on for a decade, making no exception for effective programs vital to America’s economic health that were already underfunded, like job training and infrastructure repairs. It wasn’t supposed to be this way.

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One thing, however, that shouldn't be up for debate is whether or not we should be as prepared as possible for inevitable weather events like tornadoes. We obviously should be -- but there's an increasing chance that we will not be, thanks to the manufactured crisis known as sequestration.

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I know, it is almost too much to bear.

As Politico reports, Lockheed CEO Marillyn Hewson is currently facing the uncertainty that many Americans are up against; basic questions like how, in the wake of budget slashing, to put $825 million worth of dinner on the table:

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Funding for sexual assault and domestic violence programs was already limited due to previous cuts in state and federal budgets, but the sequester's automatic spending cuts have issued a serious blow to vital service providers, according to a report from Mother Jones' Tim Murphy:

[T]he Justice Department’s Office on Violence Against Women sent an email to the hundreds of non-profits and government agencies around the country that rely on its annual grants. The message was grim: Due to cuts mandated by the 2011 Budget Control Act, better known as sequestration, programs that fight domestic violence and sexual assault would see a $20 million drop in funding over the next year...

The projections are bleak. Sen. Tom Harkin’s (D-Iowa) office estimates that 70,120 fewer domestic violence victims will have access to recovery programs and shelters; 35,900 fewer people will get help obtaining non-shelter services such as restraining orders and sexual assault treatment. Cuts to programs related to the Victims Against Crime Act will hurt another 310,574 people.

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Chasing delusion and projection is easy. Dejection, not so much, especially when some of it seems to come from the president himself.

First the easy part: Obama is a real president, Michael Douglas wasn’t. LBJ had overwhelming Democratic majorities in the House and Senate; Obama’s party lost the House, and its Senate majority is meaningless because of the outrage of current filibuster rules. LBJ also dealt with reasonable Northeastern Republicans, who gave him overwhelming majorities for civil rights legislation when the Solid South began to secede from the Democratic Party largely over race. Obama, by contrast, has mainstream Republican leaders who are terrorized by their right flank and who declared their highest priority was blocking his reelection and his agenda; they failed at the first part but are doing a good job at the second.

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Talking about how President Obama’s advisers dismissed the notion of a veto because the bill passed both the House and Senate with veto-proof majorities, I listed some progressives who voted for the bill, including House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and Rep. Maxine Waters. I also included Rep. Barbara Lee, which was really surprising to me. Surprising, because I was wrong, and she didn’t cave.

My larger point stands: Although the White House blames the overwhelming congressional vote for its inaction, had the president made voting against the bill a priority for Democrats, the bill would likely still have passed, but not with a veto-proof majority. It only got 41 “no” votes, 29 of them Democrats. (Here's the final vote.) Now that the FAA’s been protected, we’ll likely see other carve-outs – but none will protect Head Start kids or Meals on Wheels recipients. Those of us who thought the August 2011 debt-ceiling "compromise" that led to the sequester deal was "a sugar-coated Satan sandwich" were right.

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That’s better than the 2 percent growth last year and the slowdown at the end of the year. But it’s still cause for serious concern.

First, consumers won’t keep up the spending. Their savings rate fell sharply — from 4.7 percent in the last quarter of 2012 to 2.6 percent from January through March.

Add in March’s dismal employment report, the lowest percentage of working-age adults in jobs since 1979, and January’s hike in payroll taxes, and consumer spending will almost certainly drop.

Median household incomes continue to decline, adjusted for inflation. Another report out today showed consumer confidence fell in April.

Second, the recovery continues to be wildly lopsided. The only thing really keeping it going is the rip-roaring stock market. But the stock market only boosts the wealth of the richest 10 percent of Americans, who own 90 percent of stocks (including 401K retirement accounts).

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The Commerce Department said Friday that the economy rebounded from an anemic 0.4 percent annual growth rate in the October-December quarter. Consumer spending surged at an annual rate of 3.2 percent — its biggest jump since the end of 2010.

Growth was also helped by businesses, which responded to the greater demand by rebuilding their stockpiles. And home construction rose further.

Government spending sank at a 4.1 percent annual rate, led by another deep cut in defense spending. The decline kept last quarter's increase in economic growth below expectations of a 3 percent rate or more.

Many economists say they think growth as measured by the gross domestic product is slowing in the April-June quarter to an annual rate of just 2 percent. Most foresee growth remaining around that subpar level for the rest of the year.

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A House vote on the measure was expected as early as Friday, with lawmakers eager to embark on a weeklong vacation.

Under the legislation, which the Senate passed without even a roll call vote, the Federal Aviation Administration would gain authority to transfer up to $253 million from accounts that are flush into other programs, to "prevent reduced operations and staffing" through the Sept. 30 end of the fiscal year.

In addition to restoring full staffing by controllers, Senate officials said the available funds should be ample enough to prevent the closure of small airport towers around the country. The FAA has said it will shut the facilities as it makes its share of $85 billion in across-the-board spending cuts — known as the sequester — that took effect last month at numerous government agencies.

The Senate acted as the FAA said there had been at least 863 flights delayed on Wednesday "attributable to staffing reductions resulting from the furlough."

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But both approaches have problems.

George W. Bush tried supply-side tax cuts but nothing trickled down. Jobs and wages declined. And austerity economics has been a disaster for Europe.

Unfortunately the U.S. is now adopting supply-side austerics by making the Bush tax cuts permanent for 98 percent of taxpayers, hiking Social Security taxes back up, and implementing the sequester.

I’m on the Keynesian side. Yet the biggest weakness of modern Keynesian economics is it doesn’t have a clear answer for how much spending is necessary in an economy, like ours, in which wages keep dropping and government debt keeps growing. Simply arguing “more” won’t cut it.

John Maynard Keynes urged that governments “prime the pump” to stimulate demand but pump priming has limited effect if the well is running dry.

Both sides of the modern debate have neglected the scourge of widening inequality.

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The dire warnings that had issued from the White House beforehand – threatening that Social Security checks would be delayed, airport security checks would be clogged, and other federal facilities closed – seem to have been overblown.

Sure, March’s employment report was a big disappointment. But it’s hard to see any direct connection between those poor job numbers and the sequester. The government  has been shedding jobs for years. Most of the losses in March were from the Postal Service.

Take a closer look, though, and Americans are starting to feel the pain. They just don’t know it yet.

That’s because so much of what the government does affects the nation in local, decentralized ways. Federal funds find their way to community housing authorities, state unemployment offices, local school districts, private universities, and companies. So it’s hard for most Americans to know the sequester is responsible for the lost funding, lost jobs, or just plain inconvenience.

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From the New York Times:

The voluntary move would be retroactive to March 1, the official said, and apply through the rest of the fiscal year, which ends in September. The White House came up with the 5 percent figure to approximate the level of spending cuts to nondefense federal agencies that took effect that day.

“The president has decided that to share in the sacrifice being made by public servants across the federal government that are affected by the sequester, he will contribute a portion of his salary back to the Treasury,” the official said.

Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel and Deputy Defense Secretary Ashton Carter said earlier this week that they would do the same.

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Washington has failed the American people over and over again, and yet at each manufactured crisis we cross our fingers and hope that things will be different the next time. With such intense gridlock, it's no wonder that Americans have thrown up their hands. According to a 2011 CBS News poll, 80 percent of those surveyed believe that Congress is more interested in serving the needs of special interest groups than the constituents they purport to represent.

So why do Americans simply hope for the best? Why do we not stand up and demand a change? Perhaps it is because the idea of changing the culture of Washington is too daunting, too impossible. But Americans can start building a new system from the ground up that incorporates their voices into the political process.

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And how does the top Republican in the House fit into this mix? Well, he doesn't.

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As you know, I last attended the Gridiron dinner two years ago.  Back then, I addressed a number of topics — a dysfunctional Congress, a looming budget crisis, complaints that I don’t spend enough time with the press.  It’s funny, it seems like it was just yesterday. (Laughter.)

The transcript, when read sober, was hardly more inspiring. Parentheticals asserting laughter and applause appeared on the official White House transcript and could not be independently verified:

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Whether the better-than-expected results signal a faster underlying trend in job growth, and whether it can withstand the fiscal drag from the sequester, is yet to be seen, a point I return to below.

Since we want to avoid reading too much into any one month in these volatile data, the smart move is to average the last few months of payroll gains to smooth out the noise.  Doing so reveals some acceleration in hiring: over the past three months, average monthly gains were 191K; over the prior three months, 182K; and over the three months before that, 135K.

Unemployment is also down from 8.3% a year ago to 7.7% last month, as noted.

I’ll work up the details throughout the day* but for now, let’s think a bit about what this report may be telling us:

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This doesn’t mean the sequester won’t have a real impact. The domestic spending cuts will force agencies that provide aid to the poor to turn away families that need it, and the combined effects of slashing $85 billion from Defense and domestic programs over the next seven months will slow an economy that’s still struggling to return to health.

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As Ryan Grim at HuffPo noted Tuesday, The Federal Bureau of Investigations told lawmakers in a recent letter that across-the-board cuts resulting from sequestration "will cause current financial crimes investigations to slow as workload is spread among a reduced workforce. In some instances, such delays could affect the timely interviews of witnesses and collection of evidence."

"Left unchecked, fraud and malfeasance in the financial, securities, and related industries could hurt the integrity of U.S. markets," wrote FBI Director Robert Mueller III.

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"Of course, it willn't," says Stewart. "Democrats and Republicans would have to be incredible incompetent not to be able to avoid this "self-designed and imposed mutual ball punch."

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Push to repeal the sequester (a reconciliation bill in the Senate would allow repeal with 51 votes, thereby putting pressure on House Republicans), and replace it with a “Build America’s Future” Act that would close tax loopholes used by the wealthy, end corporate welfare, impose a small (1/10 of 1 percent) tax on financial transactions, and reduce the size of the military.

Half the revenues would be used for deficit reduction, the other half for investments in our future through education (from early-childhood through affordable higher ed), infrastructure and basic R&D.

Also included in that bill — in order to make sure our future isn’t jeopardized by another meltdown of Wall Street — would be a resurrection of Glass-Steagall and a limit on the size of the biggest banks.

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