My AJC colleague Greg Bluestein caught up with Gov. Nathan Deal today to talk about sequestration. Channeling Flavor Flav, the governor essentially told the good people of Georgia: Don't believe the hype.

"I think perhaps there’s been maybe more hype about the negative aspects of it than may turn out to be the actual case. The problem I think we have in Georgia is we are a state that has a number of military installations and civilian contractors who do contract work for the defense establishment … We will see some impacts. Not necessarily on the uniformed military people, but on the civilian workforce working on contracts."

Bluestein followed up with a query about fears of flight delays at Hartsfield-Jackson Airport. 

"When you consider the overall percentage that sequestration imposes in terms of reductions of spending, it would seem to me that TSA and every other facet of the federal government would have to do what all of us do at the state level, and that is prioritize the spending. And it seems that prioritizing moving people through the airports across the country would have a pretty high priority. I see sequestration as not just being allowed to say, ‘oh well, these are the effects if we just do business as usual.’ I think it requires federal agencies to do what states do in hard economic times: That is, decide where you get more bang for your buck."