Introduction
The Congressional Budget Act of 1974P.L. 99-177P.L. 100-119 P.L. 101-508P.L. 103-66P.L. 10533P.L. 113-671[1] established the basic framework that is used today for congressional consideration of budget and fiscal policy. The act provided for the adoption of a concurrent resolution on the budget (budget resolution) as a mechanism for coordinating congressional budgetary decision making. This process supplements other House and Senate procedures for considering spending and revenue legislation by allowing Congress to establish and enforce parameters with which those separate pieces of budgetary legislation must be consistent. The parameters are established each year when Congress adopts the budget resolution, setting forth overall levels for new budget authority, outlays, revenues, deficit, and debt.
These overall spending levels are then allocated to the various committees in the House and Senate responsible for spending legislation. The overall levels and allocations are then enforced through the use of points of order, and through implementing legislation, such as that enacted through the reconciliation process.[2] Points of order are prohibitions against certain types of legislation or congressional actions. These prohibitions are enforced when a Member raises a point of order against legislation that is alleged to violate these rules when it is considered by the House or Senate. Points of order are not self-enforcing. A point of order must be raised by a Member on the floor of the chamber before the presiding officer can rule on its application, and thus for its enforcement.
Although the congressional budget process encompasses myriad procedures dealing with spending, revenue, and debt legislation, this report focuses only on that portion of the process that stems from the Congressional Budget Act. The tables below list the points of order included in the Congressional Budget Act, as amended through the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2013 (P.L. 11367) (Table 1), as well as related points of order established in various other measures. These points of order include provisions in the FY2010 budget resolution (Table 3); the FY2008 budget resolution (Table 4); the Budget Enforcement Act of 1990 (Table 5); the rules of the House and separate orders adopted under H.Res. 5 (114th Congress) (Table 6); and the provisions of the Statutory Pay-As-You-Go Act of 2010 (Table 7) that pertain to the consideration, contents, implementation, or enforcement of budgetary decisions.
Points of order are typically in the form of a provision stating that “it shall not be in order” for the House or Senate to take a specified action or consider certain legislation that is inconsistent with
- ↑ The Congressional Budget Act (Titles I-IX of P.L. 93-344) has been amended on a number of occasions since its enactment. The most salient of the modifications has been as a result of the Balanced Budget and Emergency Deficit Control Act of 1985 (P.L. 99-177, also known as Gramm-Rudman-Hollings or GRH); the Balanced Budget and Emergency Deficit Control Reaffirmation Act of 1987 (P.L. 100-119); the Budget Enforcement Act of 1990 (Title XIII of the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1990,P.L. 101-508); Title XIV of the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1993 (P.L. 103-66 ); Title X of the Balanced Budget Act of 1997 (P.L. 105-33), and the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2013 (P.L. 113-67). For the text of the Budget Act, as amended through 2013, see U.S. Congress, House Committee on the Budget, Bipartisan Budget Act of 2013, 113th Cong., 2nd sess., February 2014 (Washington: GPO, 2014), pp. 275-352.
- ↑ The reconciliation process is an optional procedure set forth in Section 310 of the Congressional Budget Act. First used in 1980, reconciliation is a two-step process triggered when the budget resolution includes instructions to one or more committee(s) directing them to recommend changes in revenue or spending laws necessary to achieve the overall levels agreed to. The recommendations are then considered in one or more reconciliation measures under expedited procedures. Certain features of the reconciliation process are enforced by points of order that are included in this report. For more on the reconciliation process generally, see CRS Report RL33030, The Budget Reconciliation Process: House and Senate Procedures, by Robert Keith and Bill Heniff Jr.
