Many of our readers will doubtless find grist for the mill in this document as they try to craft lobbying strategies or just figure out what the Budget Control Act actually means. I’m including some comments here by Winslow Wheeler, one of the canniest defense budget experts in town.
Wheeler is a member of the AOL Board of Contributors.

It makes mind-numbing reading, and I did not — through the dense haze of my understanding — find any big surprises, but the CRS report provides many details about the debt deal. Perhaps the most important things I found are the various opportunities for going down a path other than sequestration and/or limiting the sequestration.

Some of the text also contemplates the idea proposed by some that, with the trigger pulled, there remains the balance of 2012 to legislate otherwise: i.e. after the elections, possibly even in early 2013, according to some. I find it surprising people (outside CRS) think that might be a viable alternative; I cannot imagine the new lows in public sentiment for Congress (and the President) that would result by allowing the trigger to “hang fire” for most of a year. While the politics of 2012 are sure to be volatile, the wholesale rejection of incumbents (both parties) in the 2012 elections looks to be a predictable outcome in such a circumstance.