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

1 1 (December 26, 2024)

handle is hein.crs/goverus0001 and id is 1 raw text is: Congressional Research Service ~ Informing the legislative debate since 1914 0 Updated December 26, 2024 Farm Bill Primer: Programs Without a Budget Baseline From a budgetary perspective, many farm bill programs that receive mandatory funding are assumed to continue beyond the end of their authorization. That is, they have a continuing baseline beyond the end of a farm bill that gives them built-in future funding if Congress decides that the programs are to continue. Baseline can be reallocated or used as an offset for deficit reduction. Mandatory spending programs do not need annual discretionary appropriations. Authorizing or reauthorizing mandatory funding for farm bill programs without baseline results in a positive score (cost) and would need to be offset by reductions elsewhere for the bill to remain budget neutral. The first one-year farm bill extension of the farm bill during FY2024 (P.L. 118-22, Division B, §102) provided $177 million of mandatory funding to 19 of the 21 programs in the 2018 farm bill without a budget baseline (Agriculture Improvement Act of 2018, P.L. 115-334; Figure 1). The second one-year extension for FY2025 (P.L. 118-158) did not provide additional funding for these programs. 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 and have baseline (2 U.S.C. §907(b)(2)), as explained by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) in the annual Budget and Economic Outlook. This is the case for long-standing farm bill programs. Some of the newer, smaller farm bill programs do not continue in the baseline because the authorizing and budget committees did not provide them a baseline to continue. 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, the statutory text of the farm bill, and the text of the extension acts, looking for programs that received mandatory funding but do not have baseline for reauthorization (Figure 1). Figure I. 2018 Farm Bill Programs Without a Budget Baseline, by Title Vte of the Form Bill Subtotal of FY2019-FY2023, Subtotalof FY2024 2018 Farrm , FY2019-FY2023 $ M~ ons O3 ! First extens on, ending FY2024 25 50 75 100 125 150 175 200 225 Nu trition $20mP., $4ni Fantood7npr Conmmoditie5, $16m... $0 7:rmm mnao Rural Devefopment. $i0m, $5 n. Ru1 a Econ Dev Source: CRS analysis of P.L. 115-334, P.L. 118-22, P.L. 118-158, and CRS Report R45425, Budget Issues That Shaped the 2018 Farm Bill, Table 3. Notes: Includes 2018 farm bill programs that received mandatory funding but had no baseline beyond FY2023. The first farm bill extension, P.L. 118-22, Division B, §102, provided one year of funding for most programs. The second extension, P.L. 118-158, Division D, §4101(e), did not.

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

Already a HeinOnline Subscriber?

Log In

profiles profiles most