In the summer of 2011, Congress and the White House struck a deficit-reduction deal that essentially raised the government’s borrowing limit in exchange for a plan to reduce the nation’s staggering deficit.

Out of that plan was born the “sequester” — a series of across-the-board federal spending cuts that are set to automatically kick in Friday unless both sides agree to a plan that would slash the deficit by roughly $1.2 trillion over a 10-year period.