We’ve been here before. 

In terms of buzzwords for federal financial crises, “sequestration” is a whole lot less visual than the “debt ceiling” of summer 2011 and the “fiscal cliff” of fall 2012. But in terms of importance and danger of real, measurable consequences, Friday’s impending sequester is an incredibly important moment to pay attention to.

Unless Congress takes action, either by way of a two-party deal or an acceptance of one of the party’s plans — both of which are basically understood to be doomed to fail — the White House must follow through with a previously imposed law to force $85 billion in across-the-board spending cuts. 

On paper, this means a 5 percent federal budget cut for nonmilitary programs, and an 8 percent cut for defense spending over the full fiscal year, according to The New York Times. However, the White House Office of Management and Budget estimates the cuts could actually amount to as much as 9 percent for domestic programs and 13 percent for military spending. 

In addition, the law does not allow for the cuts to be differentiated between programs and projects — meaning those that are of benefit to a community, state or the country will be slashed at the same rate as those which have been deemed ineffective. These cuts are too much all at once, and it doesn’t have to be this way.

But because political theater has been the name of the game in Congress for the past two years, real conversations have been left off the House and Senate floors in favor of dramatic, often inaccurate, rhetoric that wastes both time and resources.

The immediacy of the sequester could be felt as early as next week; should no plan win in Congress and no compromise be made by leaders, the first to feel the blow will be the unemployed, as unemployment checks will go out next Friday. These checks may be reduced by 9.4 percent. Doctors with patients on Medicare will also see reduced federal funds as soon as mid-March.

In April, it is estimated that the Defense Department’s civilian workforce will start taking furlough days, while other federal workers will have already seen the trend in many industries. 

And to top it all off, the threat of another government shutdown is looming. 

The sequester is a result of congressmen putting politics over progress for far too long. Though the Democrats should, in theory, have the upper hand in the sequestration equation, they repeatedly let themselves get undercut by arguments against tax hikes. But the reality is Democratic majority leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., has a plan that is much more logical: freeze the sequester until the end of the year and find ways to make gradual cuts by a combination of spending cuts and tax increases. 

The sad fact, however, is that partisan politics will once again let this plan go out and fight to the death with the Republican plan in one corner and the Obama administration’s in the other.

Even though this new Congress started out with promise of being less argumentative and partisan, the same old faces have kept the same old political theater alive. 

And no one wins.