US President Barack Obama reluctantly signed an order triggering $85 billion budget cuts.
Neither Republicans nor Democrats favour such a measure, but they failed to come to any agreement on reducing the deficit. The suggestions of both sides were turned down by the US Senate.
Democrats came up with an idea of slashing defence spending by $30 billion, but the majority of Republicans voted against the proposal.
Barack Obama blamed Republicans saying that they seem to prefer trimming the budget to “closing a single wasteful tax loophole that helps reduce the deficit”.
