CBO's Budget and Economic Outlook—usually produced in January each year and updated in August—includes projections of spending and revenues under current law over the next 10 years as well as an economic forecast for that period. CBO also typically prepares an update of its budget projections in March each year in conjunction with its analysis of the President's budgetary proposals. Those projections under current law provide the Congress with a benchmark against which to measure the effects of proposed changes in spending and tax laws.
Discretionary outlays—the part of federal spending that lawmakers generally control through annual appropriation acts—totaled about $1.35 trillion in 2011, or close to 40 percent of federal outlays. Slightly more than half of that spending was for defense. The remainder went for a wide variety of government programs and activities, with the largest amounts spent for education, training, employment, and social services; transportation; income security (mostly housing and nutrition assistance); veterans' benefits (primarily for health care); health-related research and public health; international affairs; and the administration of justice.
Discretionary outlays declined from about 10 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) during much of the 1970s and 1980s to 6.2 percent in 1999, mostly because defense spending, as a share of GDP, declined over that period. Since then, discretionary outlays have risen relative to the size of the economy, totaling about 9 percent of GDP in 2010 and 2011, in part because of military operations in Afghanistan and Iraq and in part because of the discretionary funding provided by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA, Public Law 111-5). The 2010 and 2011 figures were the highest in about 20 years.
However, lawmakers have already taken significant steps to constrain discretionary spending. Budget authority—the authority to incur financial obligations—provided for defense activities in 2011 was $3 billion (or less than 1 percent) below the amount provided the year before; budget authority for discretionary nondefense programs (plus the obligation limitations that govern spending for certain discretionary transportation programs whose budget authority is not classified as discretionary) was $39 billion (or 7 percent) below the amount provided in 2010. As a result, total discretionary funding (that is, budget authority plus obligation limitations) in 2011 was the lowest, as a share of GDP, since 2002. Nevertheless, discretionary outlays in 2011 were close to the amounts spent in 2010, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimates, because of spending from funds appropriated in previous years.
In addition, the Budget Control Act of 2011 (P.L. 112-25) instituted statutory caps on discretionary appropriations for each of the fiscal years 2012 through 2021. (By contrast, in most recent years the total amount of annual appropriations—except for those designated as emergency requirements—was governed by annual funding allocations agreed to by the House of Representatives and the Senate but not enacted into law.) The new caps do not constrain spending for the war in Afghanistan or similar activities or for designated emergencies; however, if implemented as written in the act, the caps would keep other appropriations for 2012 and 2013 below the amounts provided for 2011 and would limit the growth of those appropriations to about 2 percent a year from 2014 to 2021. Compared with allowing nonwar discretionary appropriations to grow at the rate of inflation, the capped amount of discretionary budget authority would be about 4 percent lower in 2012 and 9 percent lower in 2021; as a result, budget deficits would be reduced by $778 billion between 2012 and 2021, CBO estimates (not counting the savings in interest payments resulting from lower outlays).
The future path of discretionary spending may be affected by the actions of the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction. Under provisions of the Budget Control Act, legislation originating from this Committee could directly alter the path of such spending, for example, by changing the caps. Alternatively, if legislation originating from this Committee and estimated to produce at least $1.2 trillion in deficit reduction (including an allowance for interest savings) is not enacted by January 15, 2012, automatic procedures to cut spending will take effect in January 2013. CBO expects that 71 percent of the net savings from the automatic procedures would come from reductions in discretionary appropriations. If those procedures were triggered, appropriations for defense, excluding funding for overseas contingency operations (war-related funding), would be $110 billion—or 16 percent—lower by 2021 than they would be if they kept up with inflation; funding for nondefense activities would be $99 billion—or 15 percent—lower.
Moreover, for some programs, a comparison with inflation-adjusted funding understates the magnitude of reductions relative to the cost of maintaining current policies or plans. For example, implementing the Administration's multiyear defense plans would require nonwar defense spending to grow faster than the rate of inflation, and the demands for veterans' health care and Pell grants for higher education have also been growing more quickly than inflation. In contrast, the funding required for war-related activities—in Afghanistan and other countries—will be smaller than the amounts provided in recent years if the number of deployed troops is smaller and the pace of operations is diminished.
Regardless of the constraints placed on discretionary spending through the Budget Control Act or other actions taken by this Congress, subsequent Congresses will make the final decisions about future discretionary appropriations. Those decisions might or might not satisfy the constraints put in place by this Congress. Nevertheless, CBO assumes in its baseline projections that discretionary funding subject to the caps in the coming years will be equal to the amounts currently specified in law for those caps. As a result, legislation that reduced the funds available for a particular discretionary activity or achieved savings in undertaking a particular activity would only reduce projected total appropriations if the legislation also lowered the caps; without a reduction in the caps, funding for other discretionary activities would probably fill the gap created by the specific reduction or savings.
In a September 27, 2011, letter, the Honorable Chris Van Hollen requested an estimate of the portion of the federal deficit that is due to the current underutilization of capital and labor resources in the economy. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimates that if those resources were not underutilized—that is, if the economy was operating at its potential level—the projected federal deficit under current law in fiscal year 2012 would be about a third lower, or roughly $630 billion instead of the $973 billion projected in CBO’s most recent baseline. That deficit would be equal to about 4.0 percent of gross domestic product (GDP), compared with the 6.2 percent deficit projected for 2012 in CBO’s baseline. If the economy was operating at its potential, the deficit would be lower because incomes and, therefore, revenues would be higher, while the rate of unemployment and, therefore, outlays for certain government programs would be lower.
The Budget Control Act of 2011 (enacted on August 2 as Public Law 112-25) made several changes to federal programs and established budget enforcement mechanisms—including caps on future discretionary appropriations—that were estimated to reduce federal budget deficits by a total of at least $2.1 trillion over the 2012–2021 period. The caps on discretionary appropriations will decrease spending (including debt-service costs) by an estimated $0.9 trillion during that period, compared with what such spending would have been if annual appropriations had grown at the rate of inflation. At least another $1.2 trillion in deficit reduction was anticipated from provisions related to a newly established Congressional Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction. That committee is charged with proposing legislation to trim budget deficits by at least $1.5 trillion between 2012 and 2021. However, if legislation originating from the committee and estimated to produce at least $1.2 trillion in deficit reduction (including an allowance for interest savings) is not enacted by January 15, 2012, automatic procedures for cutting both discretionary and mandatory spending will take effect. The magnitude of those cuts would depend on any shortfall in the estimated effects of such legislation relative to the $1.2 trillion amount.
The automatic reductions—if triggered—would take the form of equal cuts (in dollar terms) in defense and nondefense spending starting in fiscal year 2013. Those cuts would be achieved by lowering the caps on discretionary budget authority specified in the Budget Control Act and by automatically cancelling budgetary resources (a process known as sequestration) for some programs and activities financed by mandatory spending. The law exempts a significant portion of mandatory spending from sequestration, however. The total savings attributed to the automatic procedures would include lower debt-service costs resulting from those cuts.
The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has estimated the changes in discretionary and mandatory spending that would occur if the automatic enforcement mechanisms were triggered because no new deficit reduction legislation was enacted. CBO's analysis can only approximate the ultimate results; the Administration's Office of Management and Budget (OMB) would be responsible for implementing any such automatic reductions on the basis of its own estimates
CBO estimates that, if no legislation originating from the deficit reduction committee was enacted, the automatic enforcement process specified in the Budget Control Act would produce the following results between 2013 and 2021:
Reductions ranging from 10.0 percent (in 2013) to 8.5 percent (in 2021) in the caps on new discretionary appropriations for defense programs, yielding total outlay savings of $454 billion.
Reductions ranging from 7.8 percent (in 2013) to 5.5 percent (in 2021) in the caps on new discretionary appropriations for nondefense programs, resulting in outlay savings of $294 billion.
Reductions ranging from 10.0 percent (in 2013) to 8.5 percent (in 2021) in mandatory budgetary resources for nonexempt defense programs, generating savings of about $0.1 billion.
Reductions of 2.0 percent each year in most Medicare spending because of the application of a special rule that applies to that program, producing savings of $123 billion, and reductions ranging from 7.8 percent (in 2013) to 5.5 percent (in 2021) in mandatory budgetary resources for other nonexempt nondefense programs and activities, yielding savings of $47 billion. Thus, savings in nondefense mandatory spending would total $170 billion.
About $31 billion in outlays stemming from the reductions in premiums for Part B of Medicare and other changes in spending that would result from the sequestration actions.
An estimated reduction of $169 billion in debt-service costs.
In all, those automatic cuts would produce net budgetary savings of about $1.1 trillion over the 2013–2021 period, CBO estimates. That amount is lower than the $1.2 trillion figure for deficit reduction in the Budget Control Act for three reasons. First, because of the lag in timing between appropriations and subsequent expenditures, part of the savings from the automatic cuts in budgetary resources would occur after 2021. Second, CBO expects that some reductions—particularly those related to Medicare—would have other effects that would boost net spending (by the $31 billion mentioned above). Third, CBO estimates that the reduction in debt-service costs would be lower than the amount of such savings stipulated in the Budget Control Act.
The majority of the savings from the automatic spending reductions would stem from further cuts in discretionary spending (beyond those embodied in the new law's caps on discretionary budget authority). CBO expects that about 71 percent of the net savings from the automatic procedures would come from lowering the caps on discretionary appropriations, 13 percent would come from a net reduction in mandatory spending, and 16 percent would result from lower debt-service costs.
Of course, the Budget Control Act could produce outcomes that are very different than the figures outlined above. The Congress could enact legislation originating from the deficit reduction committee that would produce $1.2 trillion in savings through changes that differ significantly from the automatic reductions that would be required in the absence of such legislation. Or such legislation could yield some savings, but less than $1.2 trillion, so the automatic procedures would have a smaller impact than CBO has estimated here. Alternatively, the deficit reduction committee could recommend, and the Congress could enact, legislation saving significantly more than $1.2 trillion. (The Budget Control Act states that the committee's goal is to achieve at least $1.5 trillion in savings over the 2012–2021 period.)
The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA) contains provisions that are intended to boost economic activity and employment in the United States. Section 1512(e) of the law requires the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) to comment on reports filed by recipients of ARRA funding that detail the number of jobs funded through their activities. This CBO report fulfills that requirement. It also provides CBO's estimates of ARRA's overall impact on employment and economic output in the second quarter of calendar year 2011. Those estimates—which CBO considers more comprehensive than the recipients' reports—are based on evidence from similar policies enacted in the past and on the results of various economic models.
