THE NEW Year was a tense time in the United States as the country's economy teetered on the edge of the 'fiscal cliff with potentially disastrous consequences (see Shooting Ourselves in the Head, AFM January 2013). President Obama managed to achieve a brief respite and continued to fight to get Democrats and Republicans to agree on whether to employ spending cuts or tax rises to balance America's books. To recap, the Budget Control Act was passed in 2011 to make failing to find a way forward "unthinkable" because of the stringent cuts that would follow, should an agreement between the administration and the US Congress not be reached. The name given to the process is sequestration. At the moment the US is operating under a so-called 'continuing resolution', but that ends on March 27. On March 1 President Obama was obliged to sign a law introducing sequestration, which comes into effect on April 1. "It's just dumb. It's going to hurt," he said.
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