With the automatic budget cuts known as sequestration set to start taking effect March 1st, we're going to see a lot of interesting last-minute plays to stop them. It's almost certain none of them will work. But Rep. Randy Forbes's bill introduced this morning, H.R. 773, at least offers the virtue of simplicity: At the stroke of a pen, it would erase half of the sequestration cuts -- about $50 billion this year, $600 billion over a decade -- those that apply to the Department of Defense.
"Yep, that looks like it would do it," budget expert Todd Harrison of the Pentagon's favorite thinktank, the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, wrote in an email to AOL Defense after a quick look at the short, three-page bill. (Click here to read HR 773 yourself). "This bill would turn off the sequester for national defense and increase the deficit by $600 billion over the decade. Chance of passing: 0.0001%."