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              Congressional                                                     ____
          ~ ~Research Service






Discretionary Spending Caps in the Fiscal

Responsibility Act of 2023



June  1, 2023

The Fiscal Responsibility Act of 2023 (FRA; H.R. 3746), as passed by the House on May 31, 2023,
includes provisions that would establish enforceable discretionary spending limits (caps) for FY2024 and
FY2025. This Insight provides information on those limits, as well as exemptions to the limits, and
discretionary spending levels in future years.

Discretionary  Caps  for FY2024  and  FY2025
Table 1 shows the discretionary caps imposed by the FRA for FY2024 and FY2025. If discretionary
appropriations are enacted that exceed these statutory limits for the fiscal year, a sequester would be
triggered making across-the-board reductions of nonexempt spending within the applicable category
(defense and/or nondefense) to eliminate the excess spending. Such a sequester order would be issued by
the President within 15 calendar days after the end of a session of Congress.

          Table I. FRA Discretionary  Limits on Budget Authority, FY2024-FY2025
                                  (in billions of nominal dollars)

           Fiscal Year               Defense Discretionary        Nondefense Discretionary
             FY2024                        $886.35                        $703.65
             FY2025                        $895.21                        $710.69

    Source: FRA as passed by the House on May 31, 2023.
As with previous discretionary spending limits, the FRA would designate certain spending as effectively
exempt from these limits. Spending designated as an emergency requirement would be exempt up to any
amount, while funding for certain purposes-such as program integrity initiatives, disaster funding, and
reemployment services-would be exempt up to specified amounts.
The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimated that the discretionary caps for FY2024 and FY2025
would reduce budget authority by a combined $246 billion relative to baseline projections. Reductions in
nondefense budget authority account for nearly all of that total reduction (a combined $236 billion, or
96%  of the total change), with defense budget authority reduced by the remaining 4% ($9 billion). Budget
                                                                Congressional Research Service
                                                                https://crsreports.congress.gov
                                                                                     IN12168

CRS INSIGHT
Prepared for Members and
Committees of Congress

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