Senate expected to vote on deal next week before adjourning for summer recess

By a vote of 284-149, the House on Thursday, July 25, 2019, passed bipartisan legislation that would suspend the debt limit through July 2021 and establish new budget caps for fiscal years 2020 and 2021, canceling the automatic discretionary "sequester" cuts for the next two years that would otherwise take place under the 2011 Budget Control Act. The Senate is expected to take up the bill next week and is considered likely to clear it for the president's signature.

Among Democrats, 219 supported the budget caps bill while 16 voted no. Among Republicans, 65 supported the agreement while 132 voted no. Independent Justin Amash of Michigan voted no.

Attached with this Alert please find PDFs of: 1) the legislative text of the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2019; 2) a budget table showing expenditure caps for the next two fiscal years; and 3) a two-page summary of the terms of the agreement.

The House is scheduled to adjourn for its summer recess at the end of this week. The Senate is currently scheduled to remain in session an additional week, through Friday, August 2.

Spending authority, debit limit suspension: According to materials released by both the House and Senate leadership, the agreement would increase spending by $323 billion over the spending limits set under the Budget Control Act, while also suspending the debt limit through July 31, 2021. The agreement stipulates that there will be "no additional restrictions" on the Treasury's ability to use extraordinary measures to make additional payments past that date. The agreement features a $2.5 billion exemption from the budget caps for the 2020 Census, something for which Democrats had pressed, though that figure is smaller than the $7.5 billion exemption Democrats had included in a budget caps bill produced by the House Budget Committee (HR 2021). The agreement includes $8 billion for State Department operations in the Overseas Contingency Operations (OCO) category but does not include a $1.15 billion exemption to the caps for IRS funding over two years, which House Democrats had requested.

Budget offsets:According to a summary of terms to which all parties agreed, "The agreement includes measures partially offsetting its cost. The measure would extend the Budget Control Act mandatory sequestration," which is currently set to expire at the end of fiscal 2027, "and customs user fees to achieve a total offset level of $77.4 billion as scored by the Congressional Budget Office." Medicare is by far the largest item in the expenditures that are covered under the BCA's "mandatory sequestration" element, which would be extended by two years through 2029, with automatic cuts limited at 2%. Social Security, Veterans programs and Medicaid are exempt from the sequester.

"No poison pills" or "additional new riders": The summary says that specific spending decisions "shall be left to the members of the Appropriations Committees, with 302(b)s set through the regular process of the committees. Congressional leaders and the Administration agree that, relative to the FY 2019 regular appropriations Acts, there will be no poison pills, additional new riders, additional CHIMPS, or other changes in policy or conventions that allow for higher spending levels, or any non-appropriations measures unless agreed to on a bipartisan basis by the four leaders with the approval of the [president]."

'Reducing delays.' According to the summary, "Senate Leaders agree that if a bill has been reported on a bipartisan basis from the Senate Appropriations Committee and is consistent with the [Budget Control Act] spending caps, and has the support of the Chairman and the Ranking Member, they will work together to minimize procedural delays." The terms also stipulate that the president, the bipartisan congressional leadership and the chairmen of the House and Senate Appropriations committees "shall work together to reach bicameral and bipartisan agreement on the orderly and timely consideration of FY 2020 appropriations bills to avoid a government shutdown, and a 12-bill omnibus," with similar language for fiscal 2021 as well.

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ATTACHMENTS

Bipartisan Budget Agreement 2019 Terms

Bipartisan Budget Agreement FY20_21 Legislative text

Bipartisan Budget Agreement FY20_21 Agreement table