Budget Issues

Compliance Report Required by the Budget Enforcement Act of 1990 Gao ID: AFMD-92-43 February 14, 1992

The Budget and Enforcement Act of 1990 requires GAO to certify that each order the President issues and each report the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) issue under section 254 complies with the act's requirements or indicate the respects in which it does not. In GAO's opinion, the CBO and OMB reports substantially complied with the act except for OMB's Within-Session Sequester Report and the President's order implementing it. GAO believes that the OMB within-session sequestration was unnecessary. GAO also found several cases--minor in nature--in which either OMB or CBO, or both, were not in compliance with the act. GAO also discusses (1) some areas of the act that were interpreted differently by OMB and CBO, (2) other implementation issues, and (3) technical corrections Congress may want to make to the act to clarify certain areas and allow more precise implementation.

GAO found that: (1) CBO and OMB reports substantially complied with the act except for the OMB Within-Session Sequester Report and the President's order implementing it; (2) in its Within-Session Sequester Report for fiscal year 1991, OMB incorrectly reported that budget authority for domestic discretionary spending exceeded the limit for that category by $2.4 million and incorrectly called for a sequester of 0.0013 percent to eliminate the breach; (3) the sequestration reduced 1991 outlays by $1.4 million; (4) OMB could have avoided the sequester if it had not included in its estimate the $26 million included in the Dire Emergency Supplemental Appropriations Act for the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and the Library of Congress; (5) the Emergency Supplemental Act extended the life of previously obligated HUD and Library of Congress funds until expended for purposes for which originally intended, but OMB considered those budgetary resources to be a reappropriation and incorrectly scored them as new budget authority; (6) if OMB had used the same rounding logic as in previous sequestration reports, it would not have called for a within-session sequester; and (7) there were several minor instances in which either OMB or CBO, or both, did not comply with the act.

Recommendations

Our recommendations from this work are listed below with a Contact for more information. Status will change from "In process" to "Open," "Closed - implemented," or "Closed - not implemented" based on our follow up work.

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