Summary: The President's eighth special message for fiscal year 1982 proposed 22 rescissions of budget authority totaling $10,655 million, 14 new deferrals totaling $2,334 million, and revisions to seven previously reported deferrals which increase the amount deferred by $768 million. In the President's ninth special message, he reported a $2 million reduction in the amount proposed for rescission in Mine Safety and Health Administration funds. In his eleventh special message, he reduced by $3.4 billion the amount proposed for rescission in a proposal for subsidized housing programs. The 45-day period during which the funds proposed for rescission could be withheld pending congressional consideration ended on April 23, 1982, without Congress having passed any such bill. The withheld funds were released.
GAO identified rescission proposals submitted in the eighth and ninth special messages which involve mandatory spending programs. The Impoundment Control Act does not authorize impoundments of funds for these programs. The programs included international development programs, agricultural programs, education programs, and solar energy programs. Cancellation of an estimated 20,000 units of public housing would support the proposed rescission in budget authority for subsidized housing programs. In the eleventh special Presidential message the amount proposed for rescission was reduced by $3.4 billion.
