Description:
As posted on the Web site of the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry on May 9, 2013.
Estimated Budgetary Effects Relative to the Current-Law Baseline
CBO estimates that direct spending authorized by the draft legislation over the 2014-2023 period would total $955 billion. Relative to spending projected under CBO’s May 2013 baseline, CBO estimates that enacting the draft legislation would reduce direct spending by $18.0 billion over the 2014-2023 period. Further details of that estimate are displayed in the enclosed tables. Table 1 shows CBO’s estimate of the budgetary effects by title; Table 2 provides estimates pertaining to specific agricultural commodities under title I of the legislation; and Table 3 shows estimates for specific provisions within the various titles of the proposal.
Because the proposal would affect direct spending, pay-as-you-go procedures apply. Enacting the proposed legislation would not affect federal revenues. CBO has not estimated the additional discretionary spending for agricultural programs that would result from implementing the proposal; such spending would be subject to appropriation actions. CBO also has not reviewed the proposal for intergovernmental or private-sector mandates.
Estimated Budgetary Effects Assuming That Sequestration Under the Budget Control Were Repealed
You also requested that CBO estimate the savings that would be attributable to the draft legislation if it were enacted following the enactment of other legislation to repeal provisions of the Budget Control Act of 2011 regarding sequestration. Under that law, $593 million in 2013 spending authority for mandatory agricultural programs was cancelled. That sequestration, in turn, resulted in a reduction of roughly $6.4 billion in CBO’s baseline projections for mandatory agricultural programs over the 2014-2013 period. If the current-law requirements concerning sequestration were repealed and the Congress subsequently enacted the committee’s draft legislation, CBO estimates that it would reduce direct spending by $24.4 billion over the 2014-2023 period.
Table 4 displays CBO’s estimates of the impact of sequestration on the baseline for the mandatory spending programs that would be affected by the draft legislation.
