Portside

So far, the much-dreaded "sequester" - some $85 billion in federal spending cuts between March and September 30 - hasn't been evident to most Americans.

On Friday at midnight, the sequester kicked in, triggering $85 billion in deep, dumb budget cuts that sent “nonessential personnel”— such as air traffic controllers — packing.

Obama needs to do something that doesn't come easily to him. He needs to demolish the previous terms of debate, some of them partly of his own making - he needs to disavow earlier mistaken policies that he embraced. Otherwise he will preside over the worst eight-year economic record of any Democratic president, and the steepest rate of decline in social spending. He will leave an economy even more unequal than he inherited. He needs to find the audacity to restore hope