"Asautomatic Spending"

I'm a person that stops reading when I see an unfamiliar word. First, I look at the context clues to see if I can figure it out. If that doesn't work, I google it and find the meaning. Most of the time, I learn a new word. Sometimes, however, I'm not so lucky.

Take this article for instance. After working a full day on very little sleep, most of my cognitive processes have slowed down significantly. So much so that when I read the sentence,

"That spending spurt reflected both the first outlays from the president's $787 billion stimulus package as well asautomatic spending for unemployment compensation and food stamps that is triggered during the downturns,"

I immediately googled "asautomatic spending" to see what it meant instead of just laughing at "spending spurt" like a normal person.

It turns out that "asautomatic spending" is a technical term used on Wall Street that refers to bank dividends being subdivided by subprime mortgage lending loans...

..or it means I need to go to bed early tonight.

What do you think "Asautomatic Spending" means?