The Annual Sequester of Mandatory Spending through FY2029 (CRS Report for Congress)
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| Release Date |
Oct. 4, 2019 |
| Report Number |
R45941 |
| Report Type |
Report |
| Authors |
Charles S. Konigsberg |
| Source Agency |
Congressional Research Service |
Summary:
The Budget Control Act of 2011 (BCA; P.L. 112-25) included two parts: discretionary spending caps, plus a "Joint Committee process" to achieve an additional $1.2 trillion in budgetary savings over FY2013-FY2021.
For the initial tranche of savings, the BCA placed statutory limits on discretionary spending for each fiscal year from FY2012 through FY2021. At the time of enactment, the BCA discretionary spending caps were projected to save $917 billion.
For the second, and larger, tranche of savings, the BCA established a bipartisan, bicameral Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction ("Joint Committee") to negotiate a broad deficit reduction package to save another $1.5 trillion through FY2021. As a fallback, the BCA provided that automatic spending reductions would be triggered if Congress did not enact at least $1.2 trillion in budget savings by January 15, 2012.
The deadline was not met, which triggered the BCA's $1.2 trillion in automatic spending reductions. The automatic reductions were designed to achieve $1.2 trillion in budgetary savings by reducing both discretionary and mandatory spending in each year through FY2021.
The largest share of the $1.2 trillion in additional savings was to be achieved by reducing the discretionary spending caps and the remainder through annual across-the-board cuts (sequestration) in all nonexempt mandatory spending.
The mandatory spending portion of the automatic reductions (referred to in this report as the "Joint Committee sequester") has been fully implemented in each year since FY2013. It has been extended five times and is now, under current law, effective for each fiscal year through FY2029.
This report explains
the BCA provisions that established and triggered the Joint Committee sequester,
the annual sequester calculations by OMB,
the extension and calculation of the Joint Committee sequester through FY2029,
the broad scope of the sequester across the federal budget, and
sequester exemptions and special rules.
The appendixes include a table summarizing each sequester since FY2013, a summary of the FY2020 sequester reductions, the text of the FY2020 sequester order, the text of the OMB sequester calculation, a list of mandatory sequester exemptions, and additional CRS resources on sequestration.
