Arianna appeared on CNN's "The Situation Room" with Wolf Blitzer on Wednesday to discuss the fast-approaching sequester, and its potentially devastating impact on ordinary Americans.
"There's no question that the U.S. economy is in a fragile state, with 25, 26 million people unemployed or underemployed," Arianna said. "So removing demand from economy in this time, and doing it in such a completely haphazard way, is not going to help. It's going to make it much harder for growth to happen. It's going to make it much harder for jobs to be added.
"It's an incredible sign of how dysfunctional our political system has become," she added.
Sen. Jim DeMint (R- S.C), who also appeared in the segment, characterized the sequester as a "small cut in spending," and insisted that the real damage to the economy would come from tax increases and Obamacare. Arianna responded, saying it was "unfortunate that Sen. DeMint is not looking the fact that the private sector is not investing," while lamenting that the country's largest businesses were sitting on profits instead of creating new jobs.
She also emphasized that, with infrastructure around the country in poor shape, "this is exactly the time for private-public partnerships" to inject money into the economy and help solve a longstanding problem. Instead,
Automatic across-the-board spending cuts, called "the sequester," are slated to take effect at midnight on Friday.