Provisions of the bill
This summary is based largely on the summary provided by the Congressional Research Service, a public domain source. [3]
The Congressional Research Service (CRS), known as Congress's think tank, is a public policy research arm of the United States Congress. As a legislative branch agency within the Library of Congress, CRS works primarily and directly for Members of Congress, their Committees and staff on a confidential, nonpartisan basis.
The public domain consists of all the creative works to which no exclusive intellectual property rights apply. Those rights may have expired, been forfeited, expressly waived, or may be inapplicable.
The Temporary Debt Limit Extension Act would suspend the public debt limit for the period beginning on the date of enactment of this Act and ending on March 15, 2015. [3]
The bill would increase the debt limit, effective March 16, 2015, to the extent that:
- (1) the face amount of such obligations outstanding on the date of enactment of this Act is exceeded by
- (2) the total of the face amount of public debt obligations and the face amount of obligations whose principal and interest are guaranteed by the U.S. government (except guaranteed obligations held by the Secretary of the Treasury) outstanding on March 16, 2015.
The bill would exclude an obligation under clause 2 (above) from being taken into account unless its issuance was necessary to fund a commitment incurred pursuant to law that required payment before March 16, 2015. [3]
The bill would prohibit the Secretary of the Treasury from issuing obligations during the period beginning on the date of enactment of this Act and ending on March 15, 2015, for the purpose of increasing the cash balance above normal operating balances in anticipation of the expiration of such period. [3]
Congressional Budget Office report
This summary is based largely on the summary provided by the Congressional Budget Office, as posted on the website of the Committee on Rules on February 10, 2014 (Committee Print 113-37). This is a public domain source. [4]
Upon enactment, S. 540 would suspend the current debt limit through March 15, 2015. On the following day, the debt ceiling would be raised by the amount of obligations incurred up to that point. [4]
The legislation also would extend across-the-board cuts (known as sequestration) in certain direct spending programs for an additional year beyond 2023—the last year for which sequestration will apply under current law. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimates that those provisions would reduce direct spending by about $9.2 billion in fiscal year 2024. [4]
Section 5 would revise section 403 of the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2013 (Pub.L. 113–67), as modified by the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2014, which reduced the annual cost-of-living adjustment for annuities paid to certain military retirees and survivors by up to one percent. Section 5 would apply the changes from P.L. 113-67 only to those who first became members of the uniformed services after January 1, 2014, and would increase direct spending by about $6.8 billion over the 2014-2024 period, CBO estimates. [4]
Section 6 would create a fund to be used by the Secretary of Health and Human Services to pay for physicians’ services under Part B of Medicare. CBO estimates that provision would increase direct spending by about $2.4 billion, with that effect falling in fiscal years 2017 and 2018. [4]
On balance, enacting S. 540 would reduce direct spending by a total of $34 million over the 2014-2024 period, by CBO’s estimation. [4]
The legislation would have additional effects after 2024 because the repeal of section 403 of P.L. 113-67 would continue to have costs in all subsequent years. The additional year of sequestration under section 6 would partially offset those costs by yielding several billion dollars of budgetary savings in fiscal year 2025. In combination, those effects would increase direct spending, CBO estimates, by more than $5 billion in at least one of the four consecutive 10-year periods beginning in 2024. [4]
Debate and discussion
The bill had the support of both the House and the Senate Democratic leadership and President Barack Obama. [1] Only 28 Republicans voted in favor of the bill in the House with 199 Republicans voting against the bill. [1] The bill passed in the House primarily due to support from the Democrats. [1]
Conservative organization Heritage Action announced its opposition of the bill and called on Senators to vote against it. [7] According to Heritage Action, while the limit is suspended, "President Obama and Congress will have a blank check to spend and borrow. This is extremely reckless given our nation’s $17.3 trillion debt. Every American household already owes more than $140,000 on the debt." [7]
The National Taxpayers Union (NTU) also opposed the bill. The group criticised politicians from both parties saying, "this year, as the limit approached, most Democrats refused to discuss the debt problem at all. Republicans opted to stress important, though mostly unrelated policy goals, thus failing to focus on the key issue at hand." [8] NTU expressed the opinion that spending reforms should be dealt with, instead of just increasing the debt limit. [8]
The National Taxpayers Union (NTU) is a conservative taxpayers advocacy organization and taxpayers union in the United States, founded in 1977 by James Dale Davidson. NTU says that it is the largest and oldest grassroots taxpayer organization in the nation, with 362,000 members nationwide. It is closely affiliated with a non-profit foundation, the National Taxpayers Union Foundation (NTUF). NTUF is a non-partisan research and educational organization dedicated to showing Americans how taxes, government spending, and regulations affect them. The organization developed a method of determining how fiscally responsible members of congress are. This scale is used to determine how likely a member of congress is to vote responsibly in terms of finances. Some determining factors included are personal for instance, how many overdrawn personal checks the congressman has in a certain amount of time. While this may seem brash, the personal finance of congress members plays an important part in the grade they are assigned. Another particularly important factor in the grade is how the congress member votes on bills that the National Taxpayers Union sees fiscally important. Essentially the grade given to the politician determines how trustworthy he is in the eyes of the National Taxpayers Union. The scale is also designed to accept both the point of view of conservative house members who want to balance the budget and liberal house members who would rather invest in commonwealth.
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The Budget Control Act of 2011 is a federal statute enacted by the 112th United States Congress and signed into law by US President Barack Obama on August 2, 2011. The Act brought conclusion to the 2011 US debt-ceiling crisis.
The history of United States debt ceiling deals with movements in the United States debt ceiling since it was created in 1917. Management of the United States public debt is an important part of the macroeconomics of the United States economy and finance system, and the debt ceiling is a limitation on the federal government's ability to manage the economy and finance system. The debt ceiling is also a limitation on the federal government's ability to finance government operations, and the failure of Congress to authorise an increase in the debt ceiling has resulted in crises, especially in recent years. The debt ceiling has been suspended since October 30, 2015.
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The American Taxpayer Relief Act of 2012 was passed by the United States Congress on January 1, 2013, and was signed into law by US President Barack Obama the next day.
The budget sequestration in 2013 refers to the automatic spending cuts to United States federal government spending in particular categories of outlays that were initially set to begin on January 1, 2013, as an austerity fiscal policy as a result of Budget Control Act of 2011 (BCA), and were postponed by two months by the American Taxpayer Relief Act of 2012 until March 1 when this law went into effect.
The No Budget, No Pay Act of 2013 is a law passed during the 113th United States Congress. The Act temporarily suspended the US debt ceiling from February 4 to May 18, 2013. It also placed temporary restrictions on Congressional salaries.
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The 2013 United States debt-ceiling crisis centered on the raising of the federal government debt ceiling, and is part of an ongoing political debate in the United States Congress about federal government spending and the national debt. The crisis began in January 2013, when the United States reached the debt ceiling of $16.394 trillion that had been enacted following the debt ceiling crisis of 2011.
The Veterans' Compensation Cost-of-Living Adjustment Act of 2013 is a bill that would increase the disability compensation rate for American veterans and their families. The rate would increase by the same amount as the cost of living increase that is applied to Social Security. The bill passed the United States Senate during the 113th United States Congress.
The Bipartisan Budget Act of 2013 is a federal statute concerning spending and the budget in the United States, that was signed into law by President Barack Obama on December 26, 2013. On December 10, 2013, pursuant to the provisions of the Continuing Appropriations Act, 2014 calling for a joint budget conference to work on possible compromises, Representative Paul Ryan and Senator Patty Murray announced a compromise that they had agreed to after extended discussions between them. The law raises the sequestration caps for fiscal years 2014 and 2015, in return for extending the imposition of the caps into 2022 and 2023, and miscellaneous savings elsewhere in the budget. Overall, the bill is projected to lower the deficit by $23 billion over the long term.
The Agricultural Act of 2014, formerly the "Federal Agriculture Reform and Risk Management Act of 2013", is an act of Congress that authorizes nutrition and agriculture programs in the United States for the years of 2014-2018. The bill authorizes $956 billion in spending over the next ten years.
The bill To repeal section 403 of the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2013 is a bill that would repeal the provision of the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2013 that makes changes to the cost of living allowance to military veterans.
The United States Federal Budget for Fiscal Year 2016 began as a budget proposed by President Barack Obama to fund government operations for October 1, 2015 – September 30, 2016.
The requested budget was submitted to the 114th Congress on February 2, 2015.
