美國國會在2011年夏天就債務上限達成協議後，一個“超級委員會”負責確定讓預算基本維持平衡的其他方式。如果由國會議員組成的這個代表兩黨的組織不能達成協議，就會啟動自動全面削減支出方案。減支方案定於2013年1月生效；減稅政策也差不多同時到期。
After Congress reached a debt-ceiling deal in the summer of 2011, a "super committee" was tasked with identifying additional places that the budget could be nipped and tucked. If that bipartisan group of legislators failed to come to an agreement, automatic across-the-board cuts would be triggered. Those were set to go into effect in January 2013; tax cuts were set to expire around the same time.