Prelude to a Trigger

Both CBO and OMB in the last week released sequestration reports, technical reports that detail whether the government is adhering to discretionary spending caps. Normally, these are unnoteworthy reports, but there is a small detail in the most recent ones that is worth noting.

The Budget Control Act caps set up separate caps for security and nonsecurity spending in 2012 and 2013 (security spending being defense plus homeland security, the VA, and international affairs spending), but only an overall discretionary cap in 2014 and beyond. With the failure of the Super Committee to recommend a package of savings, OMB was required by January 15, 2012 to revise those caps to have separate defense and nondefense caps that extend through 2021. These separate caps add up to the same overall discretionary spending caps of the previous caps, and it is off this baseline to which the across-the-board cuts would be applied next year if lawmakers are unable to recommend savings greater or equal to the magnitude of the trigger. It is a small detail, but it shows the trigger's first step towards going into effect.

All the more reason for lawmakers to negotiate and enact a comprehensive solution for the debt.

^{*Although the trigger goes into effect in FY 2013, it does so after the start of the fiscal year, so it is not represented in the 2013 cap}