By law, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) is required to issue a report by August 15 of each year that provides estimates of the caps on discretionary budget authority in effect for each fiscal year through 2021. Minor adjustments to the caps for 2014 have been made since CBO’s previous report on the topic, which was published in January 2014. In that earlier report, CBO estimated that the appropriations for 2014 did not exceed the caps. CBO’s assessment remains unchanged—the discretionary appropriations provided for 2014 do not exceed the caps, and thus, by CBO’s estimates, a further sequestration (or cancellation of budgetary resources) will not be required as a result of appropriation actions this year. The Administration’s Office of Management and Budget (OMB) has sole authority to determine whether a further sequestration is required; its sequestration report issued in February 2014 also found that appropriations for 2014 were at or below the caps, and the only subsequent appropriation was designated an emergency requirement and thus could not cause a breach of the caps.
Sequestration Update Report: August 2014
CBO issues one of its regular reports that provides estimates of the caps on discretionary budget authority for each fiscal year through 2021. By CBO’s estimate, appropriations for fiscal year 2014 have not exceeded those caps.