The author is Ezra Klain and he is very knowledgeable about his material.  I goggled this person.  He is a colonist with Washington Post.  His background and interest is in Political Science and budget policy which makes him an authority on the subject matter.  His article states that he doesn't understand the Republican position on the sequester.  His reasoning in explaining what he thinks the position of the Republicans budget talks are cut the deficit, cut entitlement spending, protect defense spending, and possibly even increase it, simplify the ax code by cleaning out deductions and loopholes and lowering the tax rates.  The Republicans don't want that deal.  They prefer to sequester the deal which means they will get less on the deficit, basically nothing on entitlements, tax codes, and tax rates and they  will hurt themselves on defense spending.  They fallacy is appealing to authority.  This means using the opinion or position of an authority figure, or institution of authority, in place of an argument.  Also it could be a slippery slope which means asserting that if we allow A to happen, then Z will consequently happen too, therefore  A should not happen.