“Travel has the very real potential of becoming the face of the March 1 sequester cuts. These across-the-board cuts may punish travelers with flight delays, long security lines at Transportation Security Agency checkpoints and multi-hour waits to clear Customs and Border Protection. Travel has led the nation’s economic recovery generating more than 50 percent of all jobs created since the beginning of the recession. The indiscriminate sequester cuts threaten to derail the travel-led recovery". 

Sequestration is a key piece of the legislation that created the United States fiscal cliff. In 2011, sequestration was used in the Budget Control Act of 2011 as a tool in federal budget control. This 2011 act authorized an increase in the debt ceiling in exchange for $2.4 trillion in deficit reduction over the following ten years. 

This total included $1.2 trillion in spending cuts identified specifically in the legislation, with an additional $1.2 trillion in cuts that were to be determined by a bipartisan group of Senators and Representatives known as the "Super Committee" or officially as the United States Congress Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction. The Super Committee failed to reach an agreement. In that event, a trigger mechanism in the bill was activated to implement drastic across-the-board spending reductions known as "sequestration". 

On January 31, 2013, the Senate approved and the House passed debt limit bill (H.R. 325) known as No Budget, No Pay Act of 2013 in a 64-to-34 vote. The legislation extends the current borrowing cap of $16.4 trillion through at least May 18, 2013. If Congress cannot agree on an alternative deficit reduction plan, the cuts go into effect March 1.