One thing to keep in mind is that generally speaking, when planning a budget, you aim at stabilizing the debt over the long term. In the case of the US, this metric means reducing the debt to below 60% of GDP. This is entirely achievable for the US if the parties worked together and made some unpopular choices.
Unfortunately, both sides in US politics are choosing to play it safe (in terms of short-term politics, that is), which is basically to do nothing. That's why this sequester went into effect--it was safer for them to do nothing and let this happen, than for Democrats to trim the bloated social security and medicare spending and for the Republicans to trim the bloated military budget and eliminate tax loopholes.
And to whoever thought they were making a good point by saying that this is only a reduction in the spending increase: You have to remember that costs for everything are going up, too. It's called inflation. The Federal Reserve is printing ridiculous sums of money in recent years, in an attempt to stimulate the economy--this isn't helping this particular metric. So while some of the increase may (or may not) have been a true increase in budget over the coming years, most of it is merely the same monetary value being inflated due to monetary policy. This makes the sequester in fact a pretty hefty budget cut after all.
And TLC isn't being as ridiculous as some of you guys think. Yeah, he's quoting alarmist type of stuff, but it's not too far from the truth. The US is not on a sustainable long term fiscal path right now, and the measures being taken by the Federal Reserve are similar to someone trying to patch up cracks in a massive hydroelectric damn with chewing gum. It'll hold for now, but if one believes that the solution is good enough and their short attention span gets diverted to something stupid (as it does all the time), they'll get screwed pretty hard some time down the road.
If anyone wants to play with budget stuff, there's this: http://crfb.org/stabilizethedebt/
Dunno if it's neutral or not (the colour scheme leads me to think that it may be a pro-Democrat thing), but it was made for people to have fun with during the presidential debate, I believe. Go through it and and screenshot/post your results. o/
Oh, and I bet the reason people in Congress get those bloated salaries is because they can vote to get raises! I'm sure they never come to disagreements when it comes to this. lol xD Sadly, cutting those salaries won't make a dent in the federal budget. Cutting union benefits for all those working in the public sector would, on the other hand, but Democrats wouldn't let that happen.