On the Chopping Block    

They weren't supposed to happen. Yet on March 1, after weeks of failed negotiations with Congressional leaders, President Barack Obama ordered into effect across-the-board cuts to the federal budget. The spending reductions, known as sequestration, total $1.2 trillion over nine years, including $85 billion over the last seven months of this fiscal year. The cuts may slow U.S. economic growth by 0.6 percentage point and cost 750,000 jobs in 2013, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimates. As cabinet secretaries (perhaps predictably) warned of dire consequences for their departments, Congress passed a spending bill March 21 that keeps the government funded through Sept. 30, while largely leaving sequestration cuts in place. Here are some programs whose employees and beneficiaries stand to lose the most.