WASHINGTON – A White House report issued Friday warned that $109 billion in across-the-board spending cuts at the start of the new year would be “deeply destructive” to the military and core government responsibilities like patrolling U.S. borders and air traffic control.

The report said the automatic cuts, mandated by the failure of last year’s congressional deficit “supercommittee” to strike a budget deal, would require an across-the-board cut of 9 percent to most Pentagon programs and 8 percent in many domestic programs. The process of automatic cuts is called sequestration, and the administration has no flexibility in how to distribute the cuts, other than to exempt military personnel and war-fighting accounts.

The cuts, combined with the expiration of Bush-era tax cuts at the end of the year, have been dubbed the “fiscal cliff.” Economists warn that the one-two punch could drive the economy back into recession.