Burden of US sequestration programme cuts passed to Obama administration

The task of outlining the cuts to US defence programmes that will take place under sequestration has been passed to the administration of President Barack Obama by the US Senate and House of Representatives.

The Senate passed the Sequestration Transparency Act of 2012 (HR 5872) on 25 July, a week after the House of Representatives backed it. Support for the act - which calls on the administration to submit a report to Congress on how automatic cuts will be applied to defence and other programmes within 30 days of implementation - was almost unanimous.

Sequestration is on course to be triggered on 2 January; roughly two months after the US presidential elections. The mechanism will apply automatically in the absence of a deficit reduction deal.

Congress last year drafted legislation requiring its members to agree to USD1.2 trillion savings across federal government accounts over 10 years. An impasse precluded a settlement and the Joint Committee on Deficit Reduction (the bipartisan 'super committee' convened to reach a conclusion) failed.

Given that defence and security spending dominates discretionary budgets, the military will likely bear the brunt.