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1 1 (September 27, 2023)

handle is hein.crs/govemzf0001 and id is 1 raw text is: Congressional Research Service Inforrning the legislive debate since 1914 Updated September 27, 2023 Farm Bill Primer: Programs Without Baseline Beyond FY2023 In preparation for the next farm bill, Congress may give consideration to a subset of 20 programs in the 2018 farm bill (Agriculture Improvement Act of 2018, P.L. 115-334) that do not have a budget baseline for funding beyond FY2023. These 20 programs received $886 million of mandatory funding during the five years of the 2018 farm bill (out of total mandatory spending of $428 billion across all farm bill programs). Programs that receive mandatory funding do not require annual discretionary appropriations. From a budgetary perspective, many programs are assumed to continue beyond the end of their authorization. That is, they have a continuing baseline beyond the end of a farm bill, which gives them built-in future funding if policymakers decide that the programs should continue, or, if not, the baseline can be reallocated or used as an offset for deficit reduction. Reauthorizing farm bill programs without baseline would have a positive score (cost) and likely need to be offset by reductions elsewhere. Why Some Programs Have Baseline, Others Not Under budget rules, a program with mandatory spending authority in the last year of its authorization generally may be assumed to continue as if it did not expire. This is the case for long-standing farm bill programs. Other programs, such as some of the newer, smaller farm bill programs, are not eligible to continue in the baseline because they (a) have mandatory spending less than a minimum $50 million scoring threshold in the last year of the farm bill or (b) were not provided baseline to continue by the authorizing and budget committees. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) projects future government spending in its official budget baselines but has not published a list of expiring farm bill programs without a continuing baseline. To compile this list, CRS analyzed the CBO score of the 2018 farm bill, current CBO baseline projections, and the statutory text of the law, looking for programs that received mandatory funding but do not have baseline beyond FY2023. Based on this analysis, 20 programs across 7 of the 12 titles of the 2018 farm bill received $886 million of mandatory spending authority that do not have a continuing baseline after FY2023 (Figure 1, Table 1). Figure 1. 2018 Farm Bill Programs Without a Budget Baseline After FY2023, by Title $ Millions, 5 years, FY2019-FY2023 50 100 150 Source: Created by CRS using CRS Report R45425, Budget Issues That Shaped the 2018 Farm Bill, Table 3, table notes b and c. 0 200

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