Secretary Leon Panetta talked about defense priorities. He focused on the threat of cyber attacks and emphasized the automatic spending cuts known as sequestration, saying they would seriously damage the country’s economy and degrade the military’s ability to respond to a crisis. He responded to questions from faculty and students during this address on leadership and public service in Georgetown University’s Gaston Hall.
Sequestration," a legal procedure in which automatic budget cuts are triggered, was agreed to in the Budget Control Act of 2011, and were scheduled to occur starting on March 1, 2013.