By law, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) is required to issue a report within 10 days of the end of a session of Congress that provides estimates of the caps on discretionary budget authority in effect for each fiscal year through 2021, although legislation enacted in January provided for a later release date this year. CBO is also required to report whether, by its estimates, enacted legislation has exceeded those caps; if that occurs, a sequestration (a cancellation of budgetary resources) is required. In CBO’s estimation, such a sequestration will not be required for 2013. However, the Administration’s Office of Management and Budget (OMB) has sole authority to determine whether such a sequestration is required and, if so, exactly how the proportional cuts are to be made. Those determinations are based on OMB’s own estimates of federal spending.
The potential sequestration discussed in this report—that is, one that would occur if appropriations exceeded one of the caps on discretionary funding—is different from the sequestration that has been implemented in 2013 as a result of the automatic procedures to restrain discretionary and mandatory spending. Those across-the-board budget reductions remain in effect for 2013 and will also result in a lowering of the discretionary caps and a sequestration of mandatory spending in the years 2014 through 2021.