Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., put the sequester in perspective this morning, noting that the law will lower federal spending to the same degree that the payroll tax hike lowered the size of each American’s paycheck in the fiscal cliff deal.

“It’s absurd to think that the government cannot get by with a little more than a 2 percent reduction in spending when every working American had to figure out how to make due with 2 percent less in their paychecks last month,” McConnell said on the Senate floor this morning.

Sequestration cuts the federal budget by 2.4 percent over the next decade, while the payroll tax increased by two percent earlier this year when President Obama and lawmakers opted not to extend the payroll tax holiday that had been in place.

“Normal folks must adjust their budgets,” McConnell quoted one constituent as saying, “so must the government.”