The baseline assumption: The spending cuts, if kept in place all year, will reduce economic growth for 2013 by 0.6 percentage points and reduce the number of full-time jobs created by 750,000, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

Even counting the cuts in combination with the tax increases approved in the fiscal cliff deal and expiration of the payroll tax cut, the CBO estimates the economy would still grow at an inflation-adjusted 1.4 percent this year.

That's hardly recession territory. But it's tepid growth for what is supposed to be an economic recovery.

And some worry the consequences of the cuts may be worse than expected because of the knock-on effects that aren't always taken into account.