The funny thing about an impending economic catastrophe was that no one seemed to care.
Congress was none too fussed: despite the US$85 billion in wide-ranging spending cuts set to crash down into effect, the week apparently served as a perfect opportunity to schedule a congressional recess.
The punters weren't too bothered either. They'd done the fiscal cliff thing before and, for all the warnings and threats two months ago, the sky hadn't fallen. The United States kept on spending. Congress kept on bickering. The boy who cried wolf at New Year was the President who cried sequestration.
Sequestration, for those wanting more than just a king hit in Scrabble, is a self-imposed budgetary punishment of sorts. Totalling hundreds of billions of dollars in across-the-board spending cuts, the clause was initially instigated as an economic deterrent that would come into effect only if Congress couldn't agree on a plan to reduce the US debt. If the divided Congress was at gunpoint, sequestration was the bullet in the chamber. The cuts were designed to be so hurtful that Republicans and Democrats would have no choice but to reach a compromise and pass a plan.
Except they didn't.