House Budget Committee Democrats Release Sequester FAQs - Sept. 25, 2012

The House Committee on the Budget Democratic Caucus has released FAQs on the budget sequester. This release follows last week’s White House release of a detailed report on how the $1.2 trillion in cuts would be divided. The cuts were stipulated under the Budget Control Act (BCA) enacted at the end of 2011 and scheduled to go into effect on Jan. 1, 2013. The BCA required a $1.2 trillion reduction in federal spending over the next 10 years through a process known as sequestration. The cuts are equally divided between defense and nondefense spending, with Medicare cuts limited to 2 percent of program spending in any given year. Medicaid and other low-income programs are fully exempt from cuts.