off the charts
POLICY INSIGHT
BEYOND THE NUMBERS
BEYOND THE NUMBERS
Ahead of schedule! That phrase does not normally apply to Congress. But one salutary side effect of the budget deal of last December between Senate Budget Chair Patty Murray and House Budget Chair Paul Ryan is that it automatically establishes the next congressional budget plan.
Ordinarily, Congress is supposed to agree on a budget plan — a congressional “budget resolution” — by April 15 each year. Yet with increasing frequency, the House and Senate go their separate ways, disagree with each other, argue about budget targets all year long, and trip over their own budget enforcement rules.
The good news is that the Murray-Ryan budget deal includes provisions that create an automatic budget plan, applicable in both the House and Senate and legally constituting a budget resolution, effective this April 15. The plan:
- sets 2015 funding levels for the Appropriation Committees;
- sets appropriations levels for later years at levels specified by the 2011 Budget Control Act (enforceable caps on defense and non-defense discretionary funding, as reduced by sequestration); and
- sets levels for revenues and mandatory spending, consistent with the statutory baseline that the Congressional Budget Office will issue this spring.
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