Super Committee's Success or Failure Both Threaten Federal Pay and Benefits

Pick your poison, federal employees: Would you rather leave the fate of your pay and benefits up to 12 lawmakers, or to a little-known process called sequestration that dates back to the mid-1980s?

It's a crapshoot, really, under the debt-ceiling deal signed into law by President Obama last week and the complicated budget rules outlined in the 1985 Gramm-Rudman-Hollings Balanced Budget Act. Federal pay, benefits, and jobs are at risk under either scenario during the second phase of the debt-ceiling negotiations.