About | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline
LOG IN
LOG IN

The Budget for Fiscal Year 2000: An End-of-Session Summary 1 (December 1999)

handle is hein.congrec/cbo06571 and id is 1 raw text is: .The Budget for Fiscal Year 2000: An End-of-Session Summary The Budget for Fiscal Year 2000: An End-of- Session Summary December 2, 1999 The 106th Congress concluded its first session on November 22 after passing numerous pieces of legislation in the last few days. Among them was H.R. 3194 (Public Law 106-113, the consolidated appropriation act), which comprises five of the 13 regular appropriation acts and a number of other acts. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has completed its analysis of that legislation and has updated its previous baseline projections for fiscal year 2000, which were issued on July 1, 1999, to reflect the budgetary impact of all legislation passed since that date. This memorandum summarizes the results of CBO's analysis. (The analysis used the same economic and technical assumptions as the July report. Those assumptions will be revised in January, when CBO produces its new baseline projections.) Much of the recent budget debate has centered around two distinct objectives. The first is to adhere to the caps on discretionary spending specified in the Balanced Budget Act of 1997. The second is to avoid an on-budget deficit--that is, the need to use funds generated by the Social Security trust funds to finance spending for programs other than Social Security. Under CBO's most recent estimating assumptions, neither objective will be attained for fiscal year 2000. Even after increasing the caps to accommodate emergency designations and certain other spending, as required by law, both budget authority and outlays for discretionary programs will probably exceed the caps for 2000 by about $7 billion and $17 billion, respectively. Furthermore, recent legislation has more than eliminated the $14 billion on-budget surplus projected under CBO's baseline assumptions in July. Using the same economic and technical assumptions and incorporating the effects of those legislative actions, CBO estimates a $17 billion on-budget deficit for 2000. However, in light of recent economic trends, the baseline estimates that CBO will release in January are likely to present a more favorable picture. The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) is unlikely to determine that a sequestration is necessary because its estimates of outJ-ys from the appropriation bills are lower than CBO's and because it may categorize certain provisions as offsets to discretionary spending that CBO views as affecting direct spending or revenues. Congressional scoring of the recent legislation also presents a somewhat different picture. With the scorekeeping adjustments specified by Congress--totaling $4.4 billion in budget authority and $23.3 billion in outlays--the outlay caps would not be exceeded, and the on-budget accounts would show a surplus. The Omnibus Spending Package H.R. 3194 contains the regular appropriations for the District of Columbia and incorporates by reference nine other bills--four regular appropriation acts (Commerce, Justice, State; Foreign Operations; Interior; and Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education), a miscellaneous appropriation act, and four other acts. Table I shows CBO's estimate of the impact of that legislation Page I

What Is HeinOnline?

HeinOnline is a subscription-based resource containing thousands of academic and legal journals from inception; complete coverage of government documents such as U.S. Statutes at Large, U.S. Code, Federal Register, Code of Federal Regulations, U.S. Reports, and much more. Documents are image-based, fully searchable PDFs with the authority of print combined with the accessibility of a user-friendly and powerful database. For more information, request a quote or trial for your organization below.



Short-term subscription options include 24 hours, 48 hours, or 1 week to HeinOnline.

Purchase Access

Contact us for annual subscription options:

Contact Us

Already a HeinOnline Subscriber?

Log In

profiles profiles most