An emergency unemployment-compensation program is expiring, which would save $26 billion but end payments to millions of Americans who remain jobless and have exhausted state benefits. Medicare payments to doctors would be reduced 27 percent, or $11 billion, because this year Congress has not passed the usual so-called “doc fix†to block the cuts, which otherwise are required by a 1990s cost-control law.
The biggest cut would be $65 billion, enacted across the board for most federal programs over the last nine months of fiscal year 2013, from January through September. This cut, known as the sequester, was mandated by an August 2011 budget deal between Mr. Obama and Congress that ended their standoff over raising the nation's debt limit. In that deal, they agreed to reduce spending by $1 trillion over 10 years and to identify an additional $1.2 trillion in savings by January 2013. If they fail to agree on the second installment - as is the case so far - the autom atic cuts will kick in.
