Several news organizations are reporting that if the Sequester is allowed to be implemented it will most likely not be felt by most Americans, and that even with the Sequester cuts 2013 spending will still be a net increase of 15 billion dollars over 2012.
Is this true? If so then why would the government need to furlough anyone?
According to this article: http://reason.com/blog/2013/02/19/what-will-sequestration-really-look-like the sequestration would cause 44 billion to be cut from the year 2013 budget.
CBO estimates that 2013 budget would have 3.553 trillion dollars in outlays, compared to 3.538 trillion in 2012. That means that the outlays of 2013 budget are indeed projected to be 15 billion higher than 2012 budget.
Note however that CBO projections are basing on current law and existing predictions of government revenues. The laws can be changed by the Congress, and the projections can be (and in the past, sometimes were) wrong. So we do not know if 2013 budget outlays would indeed be bigger than 2012 and by how much, we only know they projected to be more by 15 billion.
However, it is not entirely correct to say "sequester will result in an increase of spending". The sequester itself will result in decrease of spending, but combined with the fact that regardless of the sequester the spending is increasing, the net result would still be increased spending, albeit less of an increase than without the sequester.
If so then why would the government need to furlough anyone?
Government employment contracts include mandatory cost-of-living raises. Also, some of the year-to-year increase in spending will go to things other than federal salaries. For example, most Medicaid spending is spent by the states. Similarly, education spending tends to go to students (grants and student loans) or to schools. A significant amount of defense spending is on new equipment. All parts of government have to buy supplies, pay rent, etc.
The simple answer is that furloughs are less painful than other ways to save money. They could cut costs elsewhere, but they'd rather furlough. And of course, the initial estimates will exaggerate the furloughs, as sequester opponents would like to keep it from happening. Note that the people doing the estimating are government employees and subject to the reduced budgets.
So even though the sequester only restricts the rate of growth and does not provide a cut from one year to the next, it still restricts budgets in ways that are likely to lead to furloughs.
