SUPPLEMENTAL APPROPRIATIONS

IN THE 1990s

The Congress of the United States

Congressional Budget Office
NOTES

The data in this study cover fiscal years 1990 through 1999 (the period from October 1, 1989,

through September 30, 1999). That period is referred to in the text as “the 1990s.” In some cases,

information about fiscal year 2000 (October 1, 1999, to September 30, 2000) is included when

appropriate. Unless otherwise indicated, all years referred to in this study are fiscal years. 

The report uses Congressional Budget Office scorekeeping data on supplemental appropriations and

rescissions. Those data represent transfers between accounts as supplemental appropriations net of

rescissions. 

Numbers in the text and tables may not add up to totals because of rounding.
Preface

This Congressional Budget Office (CBO) study—prepared at the request of the Senate Committee on the Budget—describes the size and content of supplemental appropriation laws from fiscal year 1990 through 1999. It also examines the extent to

which those supplemental appropriations were offset by rescissions. The study updates

two previous CBO publications: Supplemental Appropriations in the 1970s (July 1981)

and Supplemental Appropriations in the 1980s (February 1990). It incorporates information from those reports to show trends in supplemental appropriations over the past three

decades.

Ellen Hays of CBO’s Budget Analysis Division prepared the study under the supervision of Arlene Holen and Peter Fontaine. The author owes a tremendous debt to

Priscilla Aycock, former chief of the Scorekeeping Unit in CBO’s Budget Analysis Division, for her help in turning CBO’s scorekeeping data into historical data. Janet Airis,

Paul Burnham, Sandy Davis, Mark Musell, and Jennifer Smith of CBO provided helpful

comments on drafts of this report, as did James L. Blum, former Deputy Director of CBO;

Roy T. Meyers of the University of Maryland, Baltimore County; Robert Keith of the

Congressional Research Service; and Philip Joyce of George Washington University. 

Christian Spoor edited the study, and Christine Bogusz proofread it. Marion Curry

typed the many drafts. Kathryn Quattrone prepared the study for publication, and Annette

Kalicki prepared the electronic versions for CBO’s Web site.

Dan L. Crippen

Director

March 2001

This study and other CBO publications

are available at CBO's Web site:

www.cbo.gov
 
Contents

SUMMARY ix

A BRIEF HISTORY OF SUPPLEMENTAL APPROPRIATIONS 1

Attempts to Control Supplemental Spending 1

Trends in Supplemental Spending in the 1970s 3

Trends in Supplemental Spending in the 1980s 3

THE BUDGET ENFORCEMENT ACT OF 1990 5

CONSIDERATION OF SUPPLEMENTALS AND RESCISSIONS IN THE 1990s 6

Rules Governing Supplemental Appropriations 6

Number of Laws Enacted 7

Budgetary Impact 10

Requested Versus Enacted Amounts 10

Changes in Purpose Since the 1970s and 1980s 11

DISTRIBUTION OF SUPPLEMENTALS AND RESCISSIONS IN THE 1990s 13

Discretionary Spending 13

Mandatory Spending 18

USE OF THE EMERGENCY DESIGNATION 19

OFFSETTING RESCISSIONS IN THE 1990s 22

First-Year Outlays 22

Five-Year Outlays 23

APPENDIX Supplemental Appropriations for Fiscal Year 2000 25
vi SUPPLEMENTAL APPROPRIATIONS IN THE 1990s March 2001

TABLES

S-1. Supplemental Appropriations Net of Rescissions,

1990-1999 x

1. Laws in the 1990s That Provided Supplemental

Appropriations or Rescissions 8

2. Supplemental Appropriations and Rescissions Requested

by the President Versus Those Enacted, 1990-1999 10

3. Discretionary Supplemental Spending in the 1990s 14

4. Discretionary Rescissions in the 1990s 15

5. Discretionary Supplemental Spending in the 1990s

Net of Rescissions 16

6. Mandatory Supplemental Spending in the 1990s 20

7. Discretionary Supplemental Appropriations and

Rescissions in the 1990s, by Budget Authority and Outlays 23

8. Five-Year Outlays from Selected Discretionary

Supplemental Appropriation Laws and Offsetting

Rescissions Since 1992 24

A-1. Supplemental Appropriations Net of Rescissions,

1990-2000 25

A-2. Supplemental Appropriations and Rescissions

in Fiscal Year 2000 26

A-3. Supplemental Appropriations and Rescissions Requested

by the President Versus Those Enacted, 1990-2000 27

FIGURES

S-1. Supplemental Spending Gross and Net of Rescissions,

1970-2000 xi

S-2. Supplemental Spending by Category, 1990-2000 xii

1. Supplemental Spending Gross and Net of Rescissions,

1970-2000 4

2. Discretionary Supplemental Spending and Rescissions

Requested by the President Versus Those Enacted,

1990-2000 12
CONTENTS vii

3. Discretionary Supplemental Spending, by Category,

1981-2000 17

4. Discretionary Supplemental Spending for Domestic

Emergencies, 1976-2000 18

5. Total and Nonemergency Supplemental Spending Net

of Offsetting Rescissions, 1990-2000 21
 
Summary

S

upplemental appropriations were smaller during

most of the 1990s than in the previous two decades. (Such appropriations provide additional

funding to a federal agency for a fiscal year already

in progress.) Nevertheless, they were a cause of concern in a decade characterized by efforts to control

federal spending and lower the budget deficit. In the

eyes of its supporters, supplemental spending gives

the Congress flexibility to respond to problems or

priorities that may not have been anticipated during

the regular cycle of annual appropriations. In the

view of its detractors, supplemental spending allows

lawmakers to circumvent budgetary enforcement

mechanisms and to deliberately underfund programs

in regular appropriation laws, which often have a

higher profile than supplemental laws.

Amount of Supplemental

Spending in the 1990s

The Congress and the President enacted 19 supplemental appropriation laws during the 1990s. Another

10 regular appropriation laws for the coming fiscal

year also contained supplemental spending for the

current year. In all, those 29 laws provided almost

$138 billion in supplemental appropriations in the

1990s (see Summary Table 1). Annual supplemental

funding ranged from a high of $48.6 billion in 1991

(most of it for the Persian Gulf War) to a low of $4.5

billion in 1996.

Those gross funding levels were partly offset by

rescissions (cancellations of budget authority that had

been provided earlier but not yet spent), which lawmakers enacted in every year of the decade. Some of

the rescissions were contained in supplemental appropriation laws and were explicitly intended to offset the new supplemental spending in those laws.

Other rescissions were contained in seven regular

appropriation laws and in one 1992 law composed

entirely of rescissions. Lawmakers rescinded a total

of nearly $52 billion during the 1990s, ranging from

a high of $18.9 billion in 1995 to a low of $0.3 billion in 1991.

Annual supplemental spending as a percentage

of the total budget authority enacted for the year began declining in the late 1970s (see Summary Figure 1). With the exception of spending for the Persian Gulf War, that decline continued through much

of the 1990s. For most of the decade, supplemental

spending net of rescissions represented less than 1

percent of total budget authority, falling to a low of

-0.8 percent in 1995 (when rescissions more than offset supplemental appropriations).

Many requests for supplemental appropriations

or rescissions are transmitted by the President, although the Congress is also free to initiate them. The

amounts of supplemental spending and rescissions

enacted in the 1990s were both larger than the

amounts requested by the President—slightly larger

in the case of supplementals but almost three times as

large in the case of rescissions.
x SUPPLEMENTAL APPROPRIATIONS IN THE 1990s March 2001

Distribution of Supplemental

Spending in the 1990s

Unlike the 1970s and 1980s, when supplemental appropriations were split more evenly between discretionary and mandatory programs, supplementals in

the 1990s were overwhelmingly associated with discretionary spending (see Summary Figure 2). Spending for discretionary programs is determined by lawmakers each year through the appropriation process,

whereas spending for mandatory programs is determined by rules—governing such things as eligibility

requirements or payment levels—written into the

laws that authorize the programs.

The agency that received the largest amount of

supplemental spending in the 1990s was the Department of Defense. Supplementals to pay for Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm in the Persian

Gulf dominated supplemental spending in 1991 and

1992, although the United States eventually recouped

the added costs of those operations through contributions from allied nations. Supplemental appropriations for defense did not figure prominently again

until the end of the decade, with funding for peacekeeping missions in Bosnia and military operations in

Kosovo.

Domestic discretionary supplementals enacted

in response to natural disasters, such as hurricanes

and earthquakes, rose steadily through the 1990s.

Other supplemental appropriations responded to

“nonnatural” disasters such as the Los Angeles riots

in 1992 and the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995. As

a result, the Federal Emergency Management Agency

was the second-largest recipient of supplemental

spending during the 1990s. Other agencies that received relatively large amounts of domestic discretionary supplemental appropriations were the Departments of Agriculture, Transportation, and Housing

and Urban Development. In addition, a substantial

fraction of the decade’s discretionary supplemental

Summary Table 1.

Supplemental Appropriations Net of Rescissions, 1990-1999

(By fiscal year, in millions of dollars of budget authority)

1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999

Total,

1990-1999

Supplemental

Appropriations

Discretionary 4,296 46,103 18,524 9,844 12,655 6,407 4,512 7,960 5,727 13,252 129,280

Mandatory 2,078 2,509 1,138 515a 862 9 0 937 550 115 8,713

Total 6,374 48,612 19,662 10,359 13,517 6,416 4,512 8,897 6,277 13,367 137,993

Rescissions

Discretionary -2,045 -331 -8,433 -2,499 -3,159 -18,940 -3,844 -7,980 -2,726 -769 -50,726

Mandatory 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 -1,250 -1,250

Total -2,045 -331 -8,433 -2,499 -3,159 -18,940 -3,844 -7,980 -2,726 -2,019 -51,976

Total Supplemental

Appropriations

Net of Rescissions 4,329 48,281 11,229 7,860 10,358 -12,524 668 917 3,551 11,348 86,017

SOURCE: Congressional Budget Office.

a. Excludes $4 billion in mandatory supplemental appropriations for unemployment insurance because that additional funding was offset by the

same amount of mandatory offsetting receipts.
SUMMARY xi

1970 1973 1976 1979 1982 1985 1988 1991 1994 1997 2000

-2

-1

0

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

Percent

Supplementals

Supplementals

Net of Rescissions

As a Percentage of Total Budget Authority

1970 1973 1976 1979 1982 1985 1988 1991 1994 1997 2000

-20

-10

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

Billions of Dollars

Supplementals

Supplementals

Net of Rescissions

In Billions of Dollars of Budget Authority

Summary Figure 1.

Supplemental Spending Gross and Net of Rescissions, 1970-2000 (By fiscal year)

SOURCE: Congressional Budget Office.

NOTE: Data for 1970 through 1979 do not break down supplemental appropriations net of rescissions into supplementals and rescissions.
xii SUPPLEMENTAL APPROPRIATIONS IN THE 1990s March 2001

Billions of Dollars of Budget Authority

1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

Nondefense Defense

Billions of Dollars of Budget Authority

a

1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

Nonemergency Emergency

Billions of Dollars of Budget Authority

a

1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

Mandatory Discretionary

a

Summary Figure 2.

Supplemental Spending by Category, 1990-2000 (By fiscal year)

SOURCE: Congressional Budget Office.

NOTE: Excludes rescissions.

a. Excludes $4 billion in mandatory supplemental appropriations for unemployment insurance because that additional funding was offset by the

same amount of mandatory offsetting receipts.
SUMMARY xiii

spending went to foreign aid and other State Department programs.

Only 9 percent of the supplemental appropriations (net of rescissions) enacted in the 1990s were

classified as mandatory. Such appropriations are

necessary when circumstances, such as worse-thanprojected economic conditions, require greater benefit payments by a mandatory program than the

amounts assumed in its regular appropriation. During the 1990s, mandatory supplementals were provided mainly for the unemployment insurance trust

fund, the Food Stamp program, and veterans’ compensation programs.

Several types of supplemental appropriations

that had been common in the 1970s and 1980s faded

away during the 1990s: supplementals for pay raises

for federal employees, and supplementals enacted

when the legislation authorizing a program came too

late for the program to be included in regular appropriations. Changes in budgetary policies for federal

agencies and in Congressional practices caused those

types of supplemental spending to disappear in the

1990s, although unauthorized appropriations continued to occur.

Areas of Concern: Emergency

Spending and the Effectiveness

of Rescissions as Offsets

All but the first year of the past decade was governed

by the Budget Enforcement Act of 1990 (BEA). That

legislation attempted to limit discretionary spending

by setting fixed caps on it—although the caps could

be raised by the amount of any spending that the

Congress and the President designated as an emergency. If spending breached one of the caps, it would

trigger an across-the-board cut, or sequestration, in

that category of spending.

Between 1991—when the BEA took effect—

and 1999, the Congress and the President enacted

over $76 billion in discretionary supplemental appropriations (net of rescissions). However, only once

during that period was there a breach of the discretionary spending caps that triggered a sequestration.

The availability of the BEA’s emergency designation

may have encouraged that additional spending. Indeed, almost 92 percent of the discretionary supplemental appropriations enacted during that period

were designated as emergency spending.

Moreover, the use of the emergency designation

expanded at the end of the decade. Until 1999, that

designation was generally confined to supplemental

spending, with few regular appropriations classified

as emergencies. But in 1999, more than $21 billion

provided in regular appropriation acts was designated

as emergency spending. In 2000, that figure rose to

$31 billion.

The Congress and the President have traditionally sought to offset new supplemental funding by

rescinding equal amounts of unspent funding in other

areas of the budget. Throughout the 1990s, such offsets were required for any new supplemental spending that was not designated as an emergency (and

encouraged for any emergency supplemental). On

paper, rescissions greatly reduced the budgetary impact of discretionary supplemental appropriations,

particularly in the late 1990s, though only in 1995 did

they equal or exceed new supplemental appropriations.

In practice, however, the extent to which those

rescissions truly offset the accompanying supplemental spending is open to question. The answer depends

on the rate at which the rescinded funds would have

been spent. If a new supplemental appropriation will

be entirely spent over five years but only half of the

rescinded funds that are supposed to offset it would

have been spent in that period, the net effect will be

an increase in outlays.

Data about the estimated spending rates of

amounts rescinded in the 1990s are limited. Nevertheless, they suggest that since 1992, in only two

years (1995 and 1996) did the rescissions explicitly

intended to offset supplemental appropriations fully

offset them when measured over a five-year period.

For the other years since 1992, those rescissions did

not produce high enough outlay savings over five

years to fully offset the supplemental spending with

which they were linked.
xiv SUPPLEMENTAL APPROPRIATIONS IN THE 1990s March 2001

Supplemental Appropriations

for 2000

This study focuses on the 1990s, but while it was being written supplemental appropriations were enacted

for fiscal year 2000. Two laws contained that supplemental spending: the regular appropriation acts funding military construction and defense programs for

2001 (Public Laws 106-246 and 106-259). Together,

those laws provided just under $17 billion in supplemental appropriations for 2000, of which $12.9 billion was designated as emergency spending. The

vast majority of the supplemental spending was discretionary; it was split almost evenly between defense and domestic programs. In addition, the two

laws included $470 million in rescissions, primarily

of unspent defense funding.
Supplemental Appropriations

in the 1990s

S

upplemental appropriations provide additional

funding to a government program for the fiscal

year already in progress, over and above the

funding provided in regular appropriation laws. Most

appropriations take the form of budget authority,

which authorizes a program to spend a given amount

of money from the Treasury. The actual spending of

that money—known as outlays—may occur over a

longer period than the year for which the appropriations are made.

A Brief History of

Supplemental Appropriations

Supplemental appropriations have been used to finance federal spending since the second session of

the first Congress in 1790.1

 Although they varied in

name and format, such supplementals were common

by the early 1800s. They frequently included spending for items authorized after the regular appropriation was enacted as well as, in some cases, spending

for programs that had already obligated more funds

than had been appropriated. Before the Civil War,

some efforts were made to give agencies the authority

to transfer funds to cover their own deficiencies. Despite those efforts, “deficiency” appropriations became so routine that two bills—the “urgent deficiency” and “general deficiency” bills—were considered regular appropriation bills under the jurisdiction

of the House Committee on Appropriations.

Attempts to Control

Supplemental Spending

The routine use of deficiency appropriations raised a

number of management and control issues. Those

issues were noted as early as the 1870s, when the

Congress passed antideficiency laws prohibiting

agencies from spending more in a fiscal year than

their appropriations for that year. Some Members of

Congress believed that the guaranteed funding mechanism provided by deficiency appropriations encouraged the Congress to underestimate funding needs in

regular appropriation bills and then “after the elections are over, make up the necessary amounts by

deficiency bills,” complained James Garfield, Chairman of the House Appropriations Committee and

future President, in 1879.2

Further efforts to control deficiency spending

were not evident until the Antideficiency Act of

1905. That law gave the Treasury Department the

task of periodically apportioning the funds appropriated to federal agencies. To reduce the need for deficiency supplementals at the end of the year, appor1. This section is excerpted from the detailed history of supplemental

appropriations that appears in Congressional Budget Office, Supplemental Appropriations in the 1980s (February 1990). 2. Ibid., p. 2.
2 SUPPLEMENTAL APPROPRIATIONS IN THE 1990s March 2001

tionment allows an agency to spend (“obligate”) its

appropriated funds only at a certain, predetermined

rate. By most accounts, the apportionment process

was largely successful in eliminating the need for that

type of supplemental appropriations.

The Budget and Accounting Act of 1921 further

centralized the budgetary powers of the executive

branch and created the Bureau of the Budget, to

which the apportionment function was transferred.

That legislation instructed the President (via the Bureau of the Budget) to submit to the Congress only

those requests for supplemental and deficiency appropriations that “in his judgment (1) are necessary

on account of laws enacted after the transmission of

the Budget, or (2) that are otherwise in the public

interest. He shall accompany such estimates with a

statement of the reasons therefor, including the reasons for their omission from the Budget.”3

To further curtail the use of supplementals, the

Antideficiency Act was rewritten in 1950 to encourage agencies to set aside reserves for unanticipated

expenses. The revised law sanctioned supplemental

appropriations only for legislation enacted after the

President's budget was submitted, as well as for

emergencies related to the preservation of human life

and property.

The Congress does not need to wait for a request from the executive branch to consider supplemental spending. Over the years, it has initiated

many supplementals itself. Those supplemental appropriations have been seen as problematic as well:

the 1966 Joint Commission on the Organization of

Congress stated that it was misleading for lawmakers

to project an image of economy by passing smaller

appropriations with the knowledge that they would

later pass supplemental funding. The commission

strongly cautioned against passing supplemental appropriations without a compelling need to do so and

recommended that Appropriations Committee reports

require extensive justification of why supplemental

requests could not have been either foreseen or postponed until the next round of regular appropriations.

Enactment of the Congressional Budget and Impoundment Control Act of 1974 provided the Congress with a comprehensive process for considering

budgetary matters through the use of budget resolutions. The budget resolution is intended to set overall

spending levels for the coming year—allocating mandatory spending among the various authorizing committees and discretionary spending to the House and

Senate Appropriations Committees.4

 The law required, for the first time, that expected supplementals

be incorporated in the President’s annual budget request and that that request include an allowance for

anticipated supplemental spending.

In general, the Congress has tried to mitigate the

effects of supplemental spending by combining it

with offsetting rescissions, which cancel budget authority that was provided in earlier appropriation

laws but has not yet been obligated. The budgetary

effects of those cancellations are typically netted

against the budgetary effects of new supplemental

budget authority, especially when the rescissions are

enacted as part of a supplemental appropriation law.

The Balanced Budget and Emergency Deficit

Control Act of 1985 set fixed targets for the deficit,

which were enforced with a regimen of automatic

spending cuts known as sequestration. If budget legislation for a given year caused the deficit target to be

exceeded, the Deficit Control Act required the President to order a sequestration of funds. In response to

that new requirement, the Office of Management and

Budget (OMB) ordered agencies to propose currentyear budget cuts to offset all requests for discretionary supplementals—unless the agency could provide

a “fully justified explanation” of why it could not do

so.

Two budget “summit” agreements between the

President and the Congress served to further tighten

the rules governing supplemental spending. In 1987

and 1989, Presidents Reagan and then Bush negotiated agreements with the Congress to set limits on

total appropriations. The negotiators were concerned

that the Congress would exceed those limits through

supplemental appropriation acts. The 1987 agreement stipulated that neither the Congress nor the

President would initiate supplementals except in the

3. 31 U.S.C. 1107; 42 Stat. 21, sec. 203(a).

4. Mandatory spending is for programs, such as Medicare and Food

Stamps, in which the amounts to be spent are determined by rules

in the programs’ authorizing legislation rather than being decided in

the annual appropriation process, as with discretionary programs.
March 2001 SUPPLEMENTAL APPROPRIATIONS IN THE 1990s 3

case of dire emergency. As a consequence, OMB

issued instructions to federal agencies that “no supplemental . . . [would] be requested for 1988 and

1989 except in dire emergencies.”5

 The President

and the Congress further agreed that neither the executive nor the legislative branch would require offsetting rescissions for supplementals that were enacted

in response to such emergencies. In the talks leading

up to the 1989 budget summit, negotiators considered

a proposal to require the President to submit spending

cuts to offset all discretionary supplementals—including dire emergencies. But negotiators reverted to

the 1987 language, fearing the absence of some sort

of “safety valve” in case of emergency.

Those two budget summits set the stage for

talks that led to enactment of the Budget Enforcement Act of 1990 (described in more detail below).

That legislation retained the concept of annual limits

on discretionary spending, but unlike the 1987 and

1989 agreements, it wrote those limits into law.

Trends in Supplemental Spending

in the 1970s

During the 1970s, supplemental spending (net of rescissions) ranged from less than 3 percent to almost

8 percent of the total budget authority enacted for a

given year (see Figure 1). The highest levels occurred in 1975 and 1977 in response to the 1973-

1975 recession. Most of that supplemental spending

was categorized as mandatory and involved extending unemployment benefits and increasing Food

Stamp funding. Supplemental appropriations in response to the recession were also provided for discretionary programs, most notably $9.5 billion enacted

in 1977 for public service employment programs under the Comprehensive Employment and Training

Act.

Most of the other supplementals in the 1970s

fell into three categories: pay supplementals (to

cover the costs of federal pay raises, whose amounts

were not known at the time regular appropriations

were enacted); supplementals provided for programs

whose authorizations or reauthorizations were delayed beyond the enactment of regular appropriations; and supplementals in response to unforeseen

events, such as the Northeast blizzard of 1978,

floods, droughts, and forest fires, as well as such

nonemergency circumstances as excess construction

costs.

Trends in Supplemental Spending

in the 1980s

Supplemental appropriations declined during much of

the 1980s, both in dollars and as a percentage of total

annual budget authority (see Figure 1). Net of rescissions, supplemental spending ranged from a high of

2.9 percent of budget authority ($19.5 billion) in

1980 to a low of 0.1 percent of budget authority ($1.3

billion) in 1988.

Two changes in the budget process that were

mentioned above constrained supplemental spending

during that decade. First, the practice of requiring

rescissions to offset supplemental spending began in

the mid-1980s after passage of the Deficit Control

Act. In general, supplemental appropriation laws

contained many more rescissions and transfers in the

1980s than they did in the 1970s. Second, the parties

to the 1987 budget summit agreed that supplementals

would not be considered except in cases of dire emergency. The dip in supplemental spending in 1988

may reflect that prohibition. The slight increase in

1989 resulted from spending for disaster relief in the

wake of Hurricane Hugo in September 1989, which

was designated a dire emergency.

Two-thirds of the supplemental budget authority

(net of rescissions) enacted during the 1980s went to

mandatory programs. The bulk of that spending consisted of more than $37 billion in appropriations for

the Commodity Credit Corporation for farm commodity programs, following worse-than-expected

conditions in the markets for farm commodities. The

Congress also provided supplemental appropriations

for the Food Stamp program, unemployment insurance, and various higher-education programs because

of unexpected gaps between projected and actual

economic conditions. Supplemental spending for

discretionary programs included funding for pay

raises for federal civilian workers, as well as spending for defense procurement and foreign aid. 5. Office of Management and Budget, Preparation and Submission of

Budget Estimates, Circular A-11 (July 1986).
4 SUPPLEMENTAL APPROPRIATIONS IN THE 1990s March 2001

1970 1973 1976 1979 1982 1985 1988 1991 1994 1997 2000

-2

-1

0

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

Percent

Supplementals

Supplementals

Net of Rescissions

As a Percentage of Total Budget Authority

1970 1973 1976 1979 1982 1985 1988 1991 1994 1997 2000

-20

-10

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

Billions of Dollars

Supplementals

Supplementals

Net of Rescissions

In Billions of Dollars of Budget Authority

Figure 1.

Supplemental Spending Gross and Net of Rescissions, 1970-2000 (By fiscal year)

SOURCE: Congressional Budget Office.

NOTE: Data for 1970 through 1979 do not break down supplemental appropriations net of rescissions into supplementals and rescissions.
March 2001 SUPPLEMENTAL APPROPRIATIONS IN THE 1990s 5

The Budget Enforcement

Act of 1990

For virtually all of the 1990s, appropriations were

governed by the provisions of the Budget Enforcement Act of 1990 (BEA), which the Congress and the

President adopted in November 1990 as part of a

multiyear budget agreement. The BEA established

statutory limits on discretionary spending coupled

with a “pay-as-you-go” (PAYGO) requirement designed to ensure that new legislation affecting mandatory spending or tax revenues was deficit-neutral.

The discretionary spending limits applied to both

budget authority and outlays.

Unlike the limits on appropriations negotiated in

1987 and 1989, which were enforced through the

Congressional budget process, the BEA caps are enforced with a statutory mechanism: sequestration

(which had been established by the 1985 Deficit Control Act to enforce targets for the overall budget deficit). When it was first enacted, the BEA set caps on

three categories of discretionary spending: defense

spending, international affairs spending, and domestic spending. (Since then, some categories have been

consolidated and others added.) If the discretionary

appropriations enacted for a given year cause any of

the caps to be exceeded, the President must order a

sequestration of funds in the category of spending in

which the breach occurs.

The timing of the sequestration order under the

BEA depends on the timing and nature of the spending. The Director of OMB is required to issue a final

sequestration report within 15 days after the end of a

session of Congress. If the report identifies a violation of one or more of the spending limits, the President must immediately issue a sequestration order to

remedy the violation. On November 9, 1990 (five

days after enactment of the BEA), President Bush

issued the first sequestration order under the new legislation. It was intended to close a breach of $395

million in international discretionary spending that

had been identified as the Congress wrapped up appropriations for 1991. However, that breach was

later determined to have resulted from a drafting

error in appropriation language. A supplemental appropriation law enacted in the following session corrected the error, rescinded the November 9 sequestration order, and restored the sequestered funds.

For supplemental appropriations, the BEA specifies that if any enacted before July 1 cause a breach

in one of the discretionary caps, a sequestration must

occur 15 days after enactment. Twelve of the 19 supplemental laws in the 1990s were enacted prior to

July 1. One of those—Public Law 102-27, enacted

on April 10, 1991—was determined to exceed the

domestic discretionary cap then in place by $2.4 million. That determination triggered a sequestration of

0.0013 percent of budget authority in each nonexempt account in the domestic discretionary category

on April 25, 1991.

The BEA also specifies that if supplemental

appropriations enacted after July 1 breach a discretionary spending cap, the relevant cap for the coming

fiscal year will be reduced by the amount of the previous year’s breach. Seven of the decade’s supplementals were enacted after July 1, but OMB determined that none of them breached the spending caps

then in place. Likewise, all of the decade’s regular

appropriation laws containing supplemental spending

and rescissions (except in 1996) were enacted after

July 1, and none were determined to breach the relevant spending caps. Supplemental spending for 2000

(in regular appropriation acts for 2001) exceeded the

budget authority caps for that year by $2.4 billion and

the outlay caps by $6.8 billion, which under the BEA

would have reduced the 2001 caps by those amounts.

However, a provision in the Military Construction

Appropriations Act for 2001 precluded such a reduction.

The BEA’s discretionary spending caps and

PAYGO requirement have been extended twice since

1990—most recently as part of the Balanced Budget

Act of 1997. They are now technically in effect

through 2002. President Clinton’s budget request for

2001 proposed extending the mechanisms through

2010, while raising the discretionary spending caps to

“reflect the cost of maintaining the operation of the

Federal Government at currently enacted levels into

the future.”6

 The Congressional budget resolution for

2001 assumed levels of discretionary spending well

6. Budget of the United States Government, Fiscal Year 2001: Analytical Perspectives, p. 286.
6 SUPPLEMENTAL APPROPRIATIONS IN THE 1990s March 2001

above the BEA caps for that year, and the Senate included language in the budget resolution (section

206) urging that the 2001 caps be raised at the earliest possible time.

Section 701 of the Foreign Operations Appropriations Act for 2001 raised both the budget authority and outlay caps for 2001, thus eliminating the

need for a sequestration of funds in 2001. The 2002

caps were not raised, however, nor did the 106th

Congress extend the overall discretionary caps past

2002.

The Budget Enforcement Act was in effect for

nine of the 10 fiscal years of the 1990s. During that

nine-year period, more than $76 billion in discretionary supplemental spending (net of rescissions) was

enacted. Notably, only once during that time did enacted supplemental spending actually result in a sequestration, and that one was a tiny cut of just 0.0013

percent. Many observers suspect that the fact that the

BEA allows the caps to be raised by the amount of

any spending designated as “emergency” funding

encouraged those supplementals. (That notion is discussed later in this report.)

Consideration of 

Supplementals and

Rescissions in the 1990s

The Congress and the President enacted 34 laws containing supplemental appropriations or rescissions

during the 1990s. Those laws provided a total of almost $138 billion in supplemental spending—the

vast majority for discretionary programs—and just

under $52 billion in rescissions. Both of those

amounts were greater than the amounts initially requested by the President—substantially greater in the

case of rescissions.

As a percentage of the total budget authority

enacted each year, supplemental appropriations continued along the largely downward path begun in the

late 1970s. The major exception to the decade’s

downward trend occurred in 1991 and 1992 with supplemental funding for the Persian Gulf War. In addition, the purpose of supplemental appropriations

shifted during the 1990s. Supplementals for federal

pay raises and for programs with late authorizations

dwindled, whereas supplementals to provide relief

after natural disasters rose significantly.

Rules Governing Supplemental

Appropriations

OMB’s current guidance on the subject of supplementals remains similar to what it offered throughout

the late 1980s: that agencies “should make every

effort to postpone actions that require supplemental

appropriations. However, submit proposals that decrease or eliminate amounts whenever such changes

are warranted. When requesting supplementals and

amendments that increase the amounts contained in

the budget, provide proposals for reductions elsewhere in the agency (e.g., rescission proposals).”7

OMB further states that it will consider requests

by agencies for supplementals only when:

o Existing law requires payments within the fiscal

year (such as for pensions and entitlements);

o An unforseen emergency occurs (such as a natural disaster requiring expenditures for the preservation of life or property);

o New legislation enacted after the submission of

the annual budget requires additional funding

within the fiscal year;

o An increased workload is uncontrollable except

by statutory change; or

o Liability accrues under the law and it is in the

government's interest to liquidate the liability as

soon as possible (such as with claims on which

interest is payable).

OMB defines supplementals as appropriation

requests that are transmitted to the Congress after

action on an annual appropriation bill has been completed by the Appropriations Committees of both

Houses. Those requests may be made by the Presi7. Office of Management and Budget, Preparation and Submission of

Budget Estimates, Circular A-11 (July 2000), pp. 401-402.
March 2001 SUPPLEMENTAL APPROPRIATIONS IN THE 1990s 7

dent either before or after transmittal of the following

year’s budget proposal.

Requests for emergency supplementals may be

transmitted at any time during the fiscal year. Ordinarily, the President requests nonemergency supplementals for the current year in conjunction with the

budget proposal for the coming year. Later supplemental requests, as well as amendments to the original budget proposal, are typically submitted in Presidential communications as the year progresses.

(Amendments are proposed actions that revise the

President’s budget request and are transmitted before

both Appropriations Committees complete action on

the budget.)

The Congress follows the guidelines of the annual budget resolution—which is generally predicated on the BEA’s caps on discretionary spending

—as it considers requests for discretionary supplementals. The budget resolution divides the desired

spending levels for the coming year into categories

known as budget functions. Function 920 (allowances) was originally intended to contain an amount

of spending set aside for anticipated supplementals,

referred to as allowances for “additional estimated

expenditures” and “unanticipated uncontrollable expenditures.”8

 Although budget function 920 has

sometimes been used to report future pay raises for

federal civilian employees and other contingencies,

in practice it is more often used to capture expected

—but not yet enacted—administrative savings.

 Instead of using budget function 920, the Budget Committees sometimes revise the current year’s

budget resolution as they formulate a resolution for

the next year (as permitted under section 304 of the

1974 Congressional Budget Act). On several occasions, those revisions have accommodated new supplemental spending. For example, the budget resolution approved for 2001 included an adjustment to the

2000 totals to allow for the enactment of the Emergency Supplemental Appropriations Act for 2000 that

was then under consideration.9

In theory, if a supplemental under consideration

by either House would exceed the amount allocated

to the applicable budget function under the budget

resolution, the supplemental is subject to a point of

order.10 In practice, however, such points of order

have generally not been raised. In some cases, supplemental appropriations have been protected with

waivers of the points of order in both the House and

the Senate.

Unlike regular appropriation bills, which are

under the jurisdiction of a single appropriations subcommittee in the House and the Senate, supplementals may include items under the jurisdiction of many

subcommittees, with varying purposes and levels of

urgency. In considering supplementals, appropriators

must grapple with issues of grouping disparate items,

considering emergency and nonemergency items together, and determining when requests form enough

of a “critical mass” to warrant going forward with a

supplemental appropriation bill.

Number of Laws Enacted

The Congress and the President enacted 19 supplemental appropriation laws during the 1990s. Except

for 1996, each fiscal year of the decade saw the enactment of at least one omnibus supplemental, which

(after 1990) usually consisted of a mix of emergency

and nonemergency spending as well as rescissions

intended to offset the nonemergency supplementals.

Those omnibus laws were usually enacted in the

spring or summer as a follow-up to regular appropriations. On 14 other occasions during the 1990s, supplemental appropriations or rescissions for a current

fiscal year were enacted as part of regular appropriations, either in separate appropriation laws or in partor full-year continuing resolutions (see Table 1). An

additional law, in 1992, provided only rescissions.

8. As originally enacted, the Congressional Budget and Impoundment

Control Act of 1974 provided for a nonbinding budget resolution to

be passed in May, followed by a second, binding resolution in September. The second budget resolution would have included new

920 allowances for any anticipated supplementals that arose between May and the end of the fiscal year. In 1985, the law was

amended to delete the requirement for a second budget resolution.

9. U.S. House of Representatives, Concurrent Resolution on the Budget for Fiscal Year 2001, conference report, Report 106-577 (April

12, 2000), pp. 39-40.

10. In a point of order, a Member raises an objection to a bill on the

grounds that it violates House or Senate rules. That objection prevents the bill from being considered unless Members vote to waive

the point of order.
8 SUPPLEMENTAL APPROPRIATIONS IN THE 1990s March 2001

Table 1.

Laws in the 1990s That Provided Supplemental Appropriations or Rescissions (By fiscal year)

Budget Authority (Millions of dollars)

Bill Number

Public

Law

Number Informal Title

Date

Enacted

Supplemental

Appropriations Rescissions

Supplemental

Appropriations

Net of

Rescissions

1990

H.R. 404 101-302 Dire Emergency Supplemental Appropriations, 1990 5/25/90 4,336 -2,045 2,291

H.J. Res. 655 101-403 Desert Shield Supplemental Appropriations 10/01/90 2,038 0 2,038

1991

H.R. 1281 102-27a Dire Emergency Supplemental Appropriations, 1991 4/10/91 5,255 -323 4,932

H.R. 1282 102-28 1991 Desert Shield Supplemental Appropriations 4/10/91 42,626 0 42,626

H.R. 2251 102-55 1991 Dire Emergency Supplemental for Iraqi Refugees 6/13/91 581 -8 573

1992

H.J. Res. 157 102-229 1992 Disaster Relief and Desert Storm Emergency 

Supplemental

12/12/91 6,849 0 6,849

H.R. 4990 102-298 1992 Rescissions 6/04/92 0 -8,160 -8,160

H.R. 5132 102-302 1992 Emergency Disaster Assistance for Los Angeles 

and Chicago

6/22/92 1,191 -8 1,183

H.R. 5620 102-368 1992 Supplemental (Hurricanes Andrew, Iniki, Omar) 9/23/92 12,775 -265 12,510

1993

H.R. 1335 103-24b 1993 Stimulus Supplemental 4/23/93 0 0 0

H.R. 2118 103-50 1993 Spring Supplemental 7/2/93 3,499 -2,499 1,000

H.R. 2667 103-75 1993 Emergency for Midwest Flood Relief 8/12/93 4,411 0 4,411

H.R. 2295 103-87 1994 Foreign Assistance Appropriations 9/30/93 1,609 0 1,609

1994

H.R. 3759 103-211 1994 Emergency Supplemental (Los Angeles

earthquake)

2/12/94 11,535 -3,157 8,378

H.R. 4568 103-275 1994 FHA Supplemental 7/5/94 * 0 *

H.R. 4454 103-283 1995 Legislative Branch Appropriations 7/22/94 0 -23 -23

H.R. 4426 103-306 1995 Foreign Assistance Appropriations 8/23/94 149 0 149

H.R. 4603 103-317 1995 Commerce, Justice, State Appropriations 8/26/94 1,240 0 1,240

H.R. 4624 103-327 1995 VA-HUD Appropriations 9/28/94 357 -2 355

H.R. 4554 103-330 1995 Agriculture Appropriations 9/30/94 33 0 33

H.R. 4650 103-335 1995 Defense Appropriations 9/30/94 299 0 299

1995

H.R. 889 104-6 1995 Emergency Supplemental and Rescissions

for Defense Readiness

4/10/95 2,318 -3,331 -1,013

H.R. 1944 104-19 1995 Emergency Supplemental and Rescissions

for Antiterrorism and Oklahoma City Disaster

7/27/95 7,453 -15,992 -8,539

(Continued)
March 2001 SUPPLEMENTAL APPROPRIATIONS IN THE 1990s 9

Table 1.

Continued

Budget Authority (Millions of dollars)

Bill Number

Public

Law

Number Informal Title

Date

Enacted

Supplemental

Appropriations Rescissions

Supplemental

Appropriations

Net of

Rescissions

1996

H.R. 1817 104-32 1996 Military Construction Appropriations 10/3/95 0 -40 -40

H.R. 2492 104-53 1996 Legislative Branch Appropriations 11/19/95 0 -64 -64

H.R. 2126 104-61 1996 Defense Appropriations 12/1/95 0 -563 -563

H.J. Res. 170 104-122 Twelfth Continuing Resolution for 1996 3/29/96 198 0 198

H.R. 3019 104-134 Omnibus Consolidated Appropriations and 

Rescissions Act, 1996

4/26/96 555 -2,644 -2,089

H.R. 3603 104-180 1997 Agriculture Appropriations 8/6/96 27 0 27

H.R. 3610 104-208 Omnibus Consolidated Appropriations Act, 1997 9/30/96 123 -127 -4

1997

H.R. 1871 105-18 1997 Supplemental for Disasters and Peacekeeping

Efforts in Bosnia

6/12/97 9,163 -7,980 1,183

1998

H.R. 3579 105-174 Emergency Supplemental Appropriations and

Rescissions, 1998

5/1/98 6,006 -2,726 3,280

1999

H.R. 1141 106-31 Emergency Supplemental Appropriations and

Rescissions, 1999

5/21/99 13,097 -1,749c 11,348

H.R. 1664 106-51 Emergency Steel and Emergency Oil and

Gas Guaranteed Loan Act, 1999

8/17/99 270 -270 0

Total Decade

Total 137,993 -51,976 86,017

SOURCE: Congressional Budget Office.

NOTE: H.R. = House of Representatives; H.J. Res. = House joint resolution; FHA = Federal Housing Administration; VA = Department of

Veterans Affairs; HUD = Department of Housing and Urban Development.

* = less than $500,000.

a. Triggered a sequestration.

b. Excludes $4 billion in mandatory supplemental appropriations for unemployment insurance because that additional funding was offset by the

same amount of mandatory offsetting receipts.

c. Includes a 1999 rescission of $1.25 billion in mandatory budget authority for the Food Stamp program.
10 SUPPLEMENTAL APPROPRIATIONS IN THE 1990s March 2001

Budgetary Impact

Supplemental funding in the 1990s ranged from a low

of $4.5 billion in 1996 to a high of $48.6 billion in

1991—most of which went to pay for Operations

Desert Storm and Desert Shield and was ultimately

offset by contributions from other nations. Setting

aside 1991 and 1992 funding for those Persian Gulf

operations, supplemental spending as a percentage of

budget authority remained relatively low through the

1990s (see Figure 1 on page 4).

The enactment of rescissions reduced the net

effect of that supplemental spending to some extent

—most notably in 1995, when $18.9 billion in budget

authority was rescinded. In that year, enacted rescissions not only offset supplemental spending but

caused a net decrease in budget authority of $12.5

billion.

Most enacted rescissions were included as offsets in supplemental appropriation acts and were explicitly intended to offset the new spending. (The

extent to which they actually did so is examined later

in this study.) Other rescissions were included in

full-year regular appropriation acts or continuing resolutions. One law enacted during the decade (Public

Law 102-298 from June 1992) provided only rescissions, in the amount of $8 billion.

Requested Versus Enacted Amounts

In the 1990s, Presidents Bush and Clinton proposed

roughly $132 billion in supplemental funding—$128

billion for discretionary programs and $4 billion for

mandatory programs (see Table 2). During that period, the Congress and the President enacted about

$6 billion more in supplemental spending than reTable 2.

Supplemental Appropriations and Rescissions Requested by the President Versus Those Enacted,

1990-1999 (By fiscal year, in millions of dollars of budget authority)

1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999

Total,

1990-1999

Supplemental Appropriations

Discretionary

Requested 2,169 33,630 11,488 18,416 13,879 9,796 3,158 2,188 22,301 10,860 127,885

Enacted 4,296 46,103 18,524 9,844 12,655 6,407 4,512 7,960 5,727 13,252 129,280

Mandatory

Requested 441 0 738 575 a 862 9 0 757 550 0 3,932

Enacted 2,078 2,509 1,138 515 a 862 9 0 937 550 115 8,713

 Total

Requested 2,610 33,630 12,226 18,991 14,741 9,805 3,158 2,945 22,851 10,860 131,817

Enacted 6,374 48,612 19,662 10,359 13,517 6,416 4,512 8,897 6,277 13,367 137,993

Rescissions

Requested -227 -3,511 -7,881 -356 -3,141 -1,295 -1,053 -439 -43 -23 -17,969

Enactedb -2,045 -331 -8,433 -2,499 -3,159 -18,940 -3,844 -7,980 -2,726 -2,019 -51,976

SOURCE: Congressional Budget Office.

a. Excludes $4 billion in mandatory supplemental appropriations for unemployment insurance because that additional funding was offset by

the same amount of mandatory offsetting receipts.

b. Includes one unrequested mandatory rescission: $1.25 billion for the Food Stamp program in 1999.
March 2001 SUPPLEMENTAL APPROPRIATIONS IN THE 1990s 11

quested—for a total of $129 billion for discretionary

programs and just under $9 billion for mandatory

programs.

Tracking the fate of each individual request for

supplemental spending over the decade is beyond the

scope of this analysis. In some cases, the Congress

accepted the President’s exact proposals, and in other

cases it increased or decreased the amounts requested. Some of the President’s proposals were not

considered, and others were considered and rejected.

In some years, the Congress also initiated new supplementals.

The Congress is likewise free to accept or reject

Presidential proposals to rescind budget authority,

which typically accompanied nonemergency requests

for supplemental spending. In many cases throughout the 1990s, the Congress initiated rescissions in

addition to or in place of those proposed by the President. Presidents Bush and Clinton proposed roughly

$18 billion worth of rescissions over the decade. But

in every year except 1991, the Congress exceeded the

requested levels, enacting a total of $52 billion in

rescissions during the 1990s (see Table 2 and Figure 2). Nearly all of those rescissions were of discretionary budget authority.

Changes in Purpose Since

the 1970s and 1980s

Although pay supplementals were routine throughout

the 1970s and 1980s, they were virtually nonexistent

during the 1990s.11 In the earlier decades, the Congress had relied on supplemental appropriations to

fund the costs of annual civilian pay raises. Those

pay raises were determined by a comparability process whose outcome was often delayed beyond the

consideration of regular appropriation bills. Thus,

supplementals were necessary to provide the pay

raises after the final levels had been determined.

Gradually, however, agencies were required to absorb greater portions of their pay raises, and pay supplementals became smaller. Throughout the 1990s,

the Congress and OMB required that agencies absorb

the full amounts of all civilian pay raises, thereby

eliminating the need for supplemental appropriations

for pay.

Supplementals enacted because of late authorizations of programs also disappeared in the 1990s. In

the 1970s and 1980s, House and Senate rules generally required that discretionary programs (and some

appropriated entitlement programs) have a current

authorization in order to receive funding in the appropriation process for the coming fiscal year. Programs

with expired authorizations were dropped from consideration, to be taken up later in the budget cycle as

supplemental appropriations if they were reauthorized. Unlike the annual and fairly predictable pay

supplementals, supplementals for reauthorized programs varied widely from year to year, depending on

the ability of authorizing committees to finish work

on and pass reauthorization bills before the deadlines

for inclusion in appropriations.

In the 1990s, programs were not necessarily reauthorized in a timely manner. But the House of

Representatives began to address unauthorized appropriations with fairly routine waivers granted by the

Rules Committee to allow the appropriations to go

forward. (Points of order against unauthorized appropriations are raised very infrequently in the Senate.) In 2001, for example, the Congress provided

roughly $112 billion in appropriation acts for programs whose authorizations had expired.12

Another change during the past decade is that

supplemental appropriations for the Commodity

Credit Corporation (CCC) declined from a total of

$37 billion in the 1980s to less than $4 billion in the

1990s. The CCC’s spending—determined largely by

conditions in the markets for farm commodities—is

financed through borrowing from the Treasury. Authorizing legislation limits how much outstanding

debt the CCC may have, so the agency uses annual

appropriations to reimburse the Treasury for its previous borrowing. The drop in supplemental appropriations for the CCC in the 1990s reflected three

changes: an overall reduction in the agency’s spending during that decade (although falling commodity

11. Only one pay supplemental was enacted in the 1990s: an additional

$5 million for pay was provided in 1990 for courts of appeals, district courts, and other judicial services. That spending was classified as mandatory.

12. Congressional Budget Office, Unauthorized Appropriations and

Expiring Authorizations (January 2001), pp. 5-7.
12 SUPPLEMENTAL APPROPRIATIONS IN THE 1990s March 2001

1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000

0

10

20

30

40

50

Requested Enacted 

Billions of Dollars of Budget Authority

Discretionary Supplementals

Rescissions

1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000

0

10

20

30

40

50

Requested Enacted 

Billions of Dollars of Budget Authority

a

a

Figure 2.

Discretionary Supplemental Spending and Rescissions Requested by the President

Versus Those Enacted, 1990-2000 (By fiscal year)

SOURCE: Congressional Budget Office.

a. Includes supplemental spending and rescissions initiated by the Congress as well as those requested by the President.
March 2001 SUPPLEMENTAL APPROPRIATIONS IN THE 1990s 13

prices in the late 1990s helped push its spending to a

record high in 2000); an increase in the CCC’s borrowing authority; and other changes in procedures

used to reimburse the agency for losses.

In contrast to the types of supplemental appropriations discussed above, supplementals to provide

relief after natural disasters increased significantly in

the 1990s. Disaster relief programs have received

funding in supplementals throughout the past three

decades. But in the 1990s, Presidents Bush and

Clinton tended to request—and the Congress tended

to provide in regular appropriations—less than what

would eventually be spent in those disaster-related

accounts. (Some observers say the underfunding was

an effort to keep total appropriations under the BEA

caps.) When a disaster or other emergency arose, the

Congress enacted supplemental appropriations during

the fiscal year, usually at the request of the President.

That supplemental funding was designated emergency spending and was therefore not counted under

the discretionary spending caps. Such funding was

provided most often to the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the Small Business Administration,

Forest Service firefighting, and other disaster-related

accounts.

Various legislative proposals were introduced

during the 1990s to address the underfunding of

disaster-related programs. One such proposal would

have required that each of those programs be funded

at its five-year or 10-year average, with any amounts

above those averages to be funded from a budgeted

emergency reserve fund. That reserve would itself be

funded at the five-year or 10-year average of all

emergency spending (excluding that for Operations

Desert Storm and Desert Shield) since the passage of

the Budget Enforcement Act. None of those proposals became law, however.

Distribution of Supplementals

and Rescissions in the 1990s

Compared with earlier decades, the composition of

supplemental appropriations changed markedly in the

1990s. During the 1970s and 1980s, discretionary

programs received one-third to one-half of total supplemental spending for the decade. But in the 1990s,

discretionary spending accounted for 91 percent of

supplemental appropriations (net of rescissions).

Discretionary Spending

Because levels of discretionary spending are controlled directly by the Congress in the annual appropriation process, many of the issues raised by supplemental appropriations apply only to discretionary

spending. Those issues include whether supplemental spending fits within the levels of the annual Congressional budget resolution, whether that spending

fits within the discretionary caps that were in place

for nine of the 10 years of the 1990s, and the extent

to which offsetting rescissions (which were required

for all nonemergency supplementals through the decade) actually offset the supplemental spending they

accompanied.

Of the $129 billion in discretionary supplemental appropriations enacted in the 1990s, more than

three-quarters fell under the control of two of the 13

appropriations subcommittees: the Subcommittee on

Defense and the Subcommittee on the Department of

Veterans Affairs, the Department of Housing and

Urban Development, and Independent Agencies.

Likewise, almost two-thirds of the $51 billion in discretionary rescissions during the decade fell within

the purview of those two subcommittees. (For a

breakdown of discretionary supplementals and rescissions by subcommittee and agency, see Tables 3, 4,

and 5.)

Although data for the entire past three decades

are not available, supplemental spending in the 1980s

and 1990s can be broken down by the categories

commonly used in the early years of the BEA—

defense, international, and domestic discretionary

spending. Figure 3 on page 17 shows discretionary

supplementals (excluding rescissions) as a percentage

of discretionary budget authority, split into those

three categories. The discussion that follows provides more detail about spending for each of those

categories in the 1990s.

Defense. Sixty percent of discretionary supplemental

spending during the 1990s, or just under $77.1 billion, went to defense programs. Of that amount, an
14 SUPPLEMENTAL APPROPRIATIONS IN THE 1990s March 2001

Table 3.

Discretionary Supplemental Spending in the 1990s

(By fiscal year, in millions of dollars of budget authority)

1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999

Total,

1990-

1999

By Appropriations Subcommittee

Agriculture and Rural Development 128 69 2,155 1,694 400 14 157 314 175 701 5,807

Commerce, Justice, State, and

the Judiciary 692 157 1,082 764 1,717 187 126 65 -30 467 5,227

Defense 2,034 43,579 9,122 2,920 1,257 2,711 999 1,921 2,835 8,582 75,960

District of Columbia 0 100 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 100

Energy and Water Development 75 648 46 205 70 0 189 592 110 2 1,937

Foreign Operations 895 -194 0 630 149 `275 318 0 0 1,644 3,717

Interior 29 0 164 92 226 -33 8 404 322 68 1,280

Labor, Health and Human Services,

and Education 277 265 713 755 265 0 0 358 11 130 2,774

Legislative Branch 2 0 0 0 1 0 0 39 28 10 80

Military Construction 10 0 453 140 0 0 38 6 26 506 1,179

Transportation 0 0 146 380 1,758 -82 682 704 338 204 4,130

Treasury, Postal Service, and

General Government 6 0 58 5 552 146 -337 7 57 38 532

Veterans, Housing, and

Independent Agencies 148 256 4,585 2,259 6,260 3,189 2,332 3,550 1,855 900 25,334

Unassigned 0 1,223 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1,223

Total 4,296 46,103 18,524 9,844 12,655 6,407 4,512 7,960 5,727 13,252 129,280

By Agency

Legislative Branch 2 0 0 0 1 0 0 39 28 10 80

Judicial Branch 21 83 31 61 0 16 0 0 0 1 213

Department of Agriculture 137 69 2,155 1,695 600 -19 245 383 236 706 6,207

Department of Commerce 123 8 167 210 45 50 26 63 0 317 1,009

Department of Defense (Military) 2,044 43,579 9,575 3,060 1,257 2,683 1,037 1,927 2,830 9,081 77,073

Department of Education 12 8 106 441 195 0 0 102 0 0 864

Department of Energy 0 623 0 0 0 0 -212 0 208 0 619

Department of Health and

Human Services 269 257 107 6 10 0 0 19 11 101 780

Department of Housing and

Urban Development 2 545 459 465 1,518 222 50 254 250 -230 3,535

Department of the Interior 20 25 164 118 26 0 161 339 61 64 978

Department of Justice 185 2 57 183 20 113 0 0 0 80 640

Department of Labor 10 0 500 311 10 0 0 0 0 0 831

Department of State 420 1,078 86 0 700 0 0 0 12 527 2,823

Department of Transportation 1 20 146 432 1,583 -54 682 674 297 207 3,988

Department of the Treasury 0 0 54 15 0 55 -5 2 57 5 183

Department of Veterans Affairs 94 25 100 0 68 0 0 0 0 0 287

Corps of Engineers 75 0 46 175 70 0 165 585 105 0 1,221

Other Defense (Civil programs) 1 0 57 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 58

Environmental Protection Agency 2 0 0 37 0 0 0 0 0 0 39

Executive Office of the President -16 0 0 6 553 12 3 0 0 1 559

Federal Emergency Management

Agency 53 0 3,968 1,735 4,731 3,282 2,282 3,300 1,605 1,130 22,086

General Services Administration 0 0 4 -18 0 66 0 0 0 2 54

International Assistance Programs 785 -337 0 630 132 275 318 0 25 1,177 3,005

National Aeronautics and

Space Administration -1 0 0 20 166 -365 0 -4 0 0 -184

Small Business Administration 0 0 740 245 981 0 100 0 0 0 2,066

Other Independent Agencies 57 118 2 17 -11 71 0 37 6 77 374

Allowances 0 0 0 0 0 0 -340 240 -4 -4 -108

Total 4,296 46,103 18,524 9,844 12,655 6,407 4,512 7,960 5,727 13,252 129,280

SOURCE: Congressional Budget Office.
March 2001 SUPPLEMENTAL APPROPRIATIONS IN THE 1990s 15

Table 4.

Discretionary Rescissions in the 1990s (By fiscal year, in millions of dollars of budget authority)

1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999

Total,

1990-

1999

By Appropriations Subcommittee

Agriculture and Rural Development 0 0 -15 -150 -205 -118 -15 0 -15 0 -518

Commerce, Justice, State, and

the Judiciary 0 -32 -25 -510 -60 -536 -237 -19 0 -290 -1,709

Defense -1,776 0 -7,099 -974 -252 -2,310 -1,976 -1,733 0 0 -16,120

District of Columbia 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

Energy and Water Development 0 0 -5 0 -301 -450 -25 -22 0 0 -803

Foreign Operations 0 0 -155 0 -249 -303 -45 0 0 -30 -782

Interior -15 0 -28 -8 -20 -281 -95 -28 -10 -7 -492

Labor, Health and Human Services,

and Education 0 0 -23 -325 -52 -2,857 -449 -700 -11 -32 -4,449

Legislative Branch 0 0 -40 0 -7 -40 -68 -5 0 -4 -164

Military Construction -254 0 -137 -133 -603 -102 -80 -195 0 -31 -1,535

Transportation 0 0 -10 -268 -866 -2,745 -777 -1,622 -302 -10 -6,600

Treasury, Postal Service, and

General Government 0 0 -17 -41 -140 -711 -24 -6 -41 -15 -995

Veterans, Housing, and

Independent Agencies 0 -299 -879 -90 -404 -8,487 -53 -3,650 -2,347 -350 -16,559

Total -2,045 -331 -8,433 -2,499 -3,159 -18,940 -3,844 -7,980 -2,726 -769 -50,726

By Agency

Legislative Branch 0 0 -40 0 -7 -40 -68 -5 0 -4 -164

Judicial Branch 0 -8 0 0 -3 -16 0 0 0 0 -27

Department of Agriculture 0 0 -34 -150 -205 -122 0 0 -16 0 -527

Department of Commerce 0 -24 -10 -3 -35 -241 -75 -7 0 0 -395

Department of Defense (Military) -2,030 0 -7,235 -1,107 -855 -2,412 -2,070 -1,928 0 -31 -17,668

Department of Education 0 0 -2 0 -9 -658 -53 0 0 -7 -729

Department of Energy 0 0 -4 0 -149 -407 -50 -50 0 0 -660

Department of Health and

Human Services 0 0 -21 0 -39 -505 -329 -700 -11 -3 -1,608

Department of Housing and

 Urban Development 0 -299 -848 -56 -242 -6,462 0 -3,650 -2,347 -350 -14,254

Department of the Interior 0 0 -9 -5 -34 -140 -30 0 -10 -7 -235

Department of Justice 0 0 -4 -180 0 -102 -65 -10 0 0 -361

Department of Labor 0 0 0 -50 -4 -1,652 0 0 0 -22 -1,728

Department of State 0 0 -6 0 -10 -51 -65 0 0 -20 -152

Department of Transportation 0 0 -10 -320 -866 -2,719 -762 -1,622 -303 -10 -6,612

Department of the Treasury 0 0 -16 -10 -22 -14 0 0 -40 -5 -107

Department of Veterans Affairs 0 0 0 0 0 -81 0 0 0 0 -81

Corps of Engineers 0 0 -1 0 -122 -70 0 0 0 0 -193

Other Defense (Civil programs) 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

Environmental Protection Agency 0 0 -24 -6 -22 -1,285 0 0 0 0 -1,337

Executive Office of the President -15 0 -1 -1 0 0 0 0 0 -10 -27

Federal Emergency Management

Agency 0 0 0 0 -2 0 0 0 0 0 -2

General Services Administration 0 0 0 -31 -134 -631 -3 -6 0 0 -805

International Assistance Programs 0 0 -155 0 -249 -300 0 0 0 -30 -734

National Aeronautics and

Space Administration 0 0 -4 -27 -120 -204 0 0 0 0 -355

Small Business Administration 0 0 0 -83 -4 -21 0 0 0 0 -108

Other Independent Agencies 0 0 -7 -470 -16 -482 -86 -2 0 0 -1,063

Allowances 0 0 -2 0 -10 -325 -188 0 1 -270 -794

Total -2,045 -331 -8,433 -2,499 -3,159 -18,940 -3,844 -7,980 -2,726 -769 -50,726

SOURCE: Congressional Budget Office.
16 SUPPLEMENTAL APPROPRIATIONS IN THE 1990s March 2001

Table 5.

Discretionary Supplemental Spending in the 1990s Net of Rescissions

(By fiscal year, in millions of dollars of budget authority)

1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999

Total,

1990-

1999

By Appropriations Subcommittee

Agriculture and Rural Development 128 69 2,140 1,544 195 -104 142 314 160 701 5,289

Commerce, Justice, State, and

the Judiciary 692 125 1,057 254 1,657 -349 -111 46 -30 177 3,518

Defense 258 43,579 2,023 1,946 1,005 401 -977 188 2,835 8,582 59,840

District of Columbia 0 100 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 100

Energy and Water Development 75 648 41 205 -231 -450 164 570 110 2 1,134

Foreign Operations 895 -194 -155 630 -100 -28 273 0 0 1,614 2,935

Interior 14 0 136 84 206 -314 -87 376 312 61 788

Labor, Health and Human Services,

and Education 277 265 690 430 213 -2,857 -449 -342 0 98 -1,675

Legislative Branch 2 0 -40 0 -6 -40 -68 34 28 6 -84

Military Construction -244 0 316 7 -603 -102 -42 -189 26 475 -356

Transportation 0 0 136 112 892 -2,827 -95 -918 36 194 -2,470

Treasury, Postal Service, and

General Government 6 0 41 -36 412 -565 -361 1 16 23 -463

Veterans, Housing, and

Independent Agencies 148 -43 3,706 2,169 5,856 -5,298 2,279 -100 -492 550 8,775

Unassigned 0 1,223 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1,223

Total 2,251 45,772 10,091 7,345 9,496 -12,533 668 -20 3,001 12,483 78,554

By Agency

Legislative Branch 2 0 -40 0 -6 -40 -68 34 28 6 -84

Judicial Branch 21 75 31 61 -3 0 0 0 0 1 186

Department of Agriculture 137 69 2,121 1,545 395 -141 245 383 220 706 5,680

Department of Commerce 123 -16 157 207 10 -191 -49 56 0 317 614

Department of Defense (Military) 14 43,579 2,340 1,953 402 271 -1,033 -1 2,830 9,050 59,405

Department of Education 12 8 104 441 186 -658 -53 102 0 -7 135

Department of Energy 0 623 -4 0 -149 -407 -262 -50 208 0 -41

Department of Health and

 Human Services 269 257 86 6 -29 -505 -329 -681 0 98 -828

Department of Housing and

Urban Development 2 246 -389 409 1,276 -6,240 50 -3,396 -2,097 -580 -10,719

Department of the Interior 20 25 155 113 -8 -140 131 339 51 57 743

Department of Justice 185 2 53 3 20 11 -65 -10 0 80 279

Department of Labor 10 0 500 261 6 -1,652 0 0 0 -22 -897

Department of State 420 1,078 80 0 690 -51 -65 0 12 507 2,671

Department of Transportation 1 20 136 112 717 -2,773 -80 -948 -6 197 -2,624

Department of the Treasury 0 0 38 5 -22 41 -5 2 17 0 76

Department of Veterans Affairs 94 25 100 0 68 -81 0 0 0 0 206

Corps of Engineers 75 0 45 175 -52 -70 165 585 105 0 1,028

Other Defense (Civil programs) 1 0 57 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 58

Environmental Protection Agency 2 0 -24 31 -22 -1,285 0 0 0 0 -1,298

Executive Office of the President -31 0 -1 5 553 12 3 0 0 -9 532

Federal Emergency Management

Agency 53 0 3,968 1,735 4,729 3,282 2,282 3,300 1,605 1,130 22,084

General Services Administration 0 0 4 -49 -134 -565 -3 -6 0 2 -751

International Assistance Programs 785 -337 -155 630 -117 -25 318 0 25 1,147 2,271

National Aeronautics and

Space Administration -1 0 -4 -7 46 -569 0 -4 0 0 -539

Small Business Administration 0 0 740 162 977 -21 100 0 0 0 1,958

Other Independent Agencies 57 118 -5 -453 -27 -411 -86 35 6 77 -689

Allowances 0 0 -2 0 -10 -325 -528 240 -3 -274 -902

Total 2,251 45,772 10,091 7,345 9,496 -12,533 668 -20 3,001 12,483 78,554

SOURCE: Congressional Budget Office.
March 2001 SUPPLEMENTAL APPROPRIATIONS IN THE 1990s 17

1981 1983 1985 1987 1989 1991 1993 1995 1997 1999

0

3

6

9

12

Domestic International Defense

Percentage of Discretionary Budget Authority

estimated $51.4 billion was enacted to pay for Operations Desert Storm and Desert Shield in 1990 through

1992. The BEA stipulated that any funding intended

for those operations in 1991 and beyond was automatically designated an emergency and not subject to

the new caps on defense discretionary spending. Furthermore, over the next several years, much of the incremental cost of the operations (the cost over and

above the military’s regular operating expenses) was

offset by burden-sharing contributions from allied

nations. Those contributions (which were counted as

offsetting collections) are not reflected here, but by

some accounts, the federal government “broke even”

on the incremental costs of the Persian Gulf War.

The rest of the decade’s supplemental defense

appropriations were intended primarily to bolster defense readiness and pay for peacekeeping missions,

most notably in Bosnia and Kosovo. Such supplementals reached a peak of $9.1 billion in 1999 and

consisted largely of appropriations to the Overseas

Contingency Operations Transfer Fund to finance

those peacekeeping missions.

Excluding funds for the Gulf War, defense supplementals represented 20 percent of total discretionary supplemental appropriations in the 1990s. In addition, defense spending accounted for 35 percent of

the discretionary budget authority rescinded in the

10-year period.

International. Supplemental appropriations providing foreign aid and other international funding made

up roughly 3 percent of discretionary supplemental

spending over the 1990s. Early in the decade, those

supplementals provided spending authority for the

Economic Support Fund (which gives assistance to

various countries), contributions to international organizations, and migration and refugee assistance in

the wake of the Gulf War. In the middle of the decade, supplemental assistance was provided to the

newly independent states of the former Soviet Union.

The relatively large amounts of international funding

enacted in 1999 were a response to Hurricane Mitch

in Central America, although they also assisted migrants and refugees and provided for other contributions related to the situations in Bosnia and Kosovo.

Domestic. After the Department of Defense, the second largest recipient of discretionary supplementals

during the 1990s was the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). It received substantial

amounts of supplemental budget authority in every

year of the decade except 1991, totaling $22.1 billion. That amount primarily represents appropriations to FEMA’s disaster relief account to pay for

relief efforts in the wake of hurricanes, floods, earthquakes, and droughts. Other agencies that received

substantial amounts of supplemental budget authority

included the Departments of Agriculture, Housing

and Urban Development, and Transportation.

Figure 3.

Discretionary Supplemental Spending, by Category, 1981-2000 (By fiscal year)

SOURCE: Congressional Budget Office.
18 SUPPLEMENTAL APPROPRIATIONS IN THE 1990s March 2001

1976 1978 1980 1982 1984 1986 1988 1990 1992 1994 1996 1998 2000

0

1

2

3

4

5

6

Percentage of Domestic Discretionary Budget Authority

Northeast 

blizzard;

floods and

drought

Northridge 

 earthquake Hurricanes Andrew and Iniki;

Chicago flood;

Los Angeles riots

Dakotas 

flooding

Hurricane 

Hugo;

Loma Prieta

earthquake

Mount St. Helens

eruption

Oklahoma City

bombing

Figure 4.

Discretionary Supplemental Spending for Domestic Emergencies, 1976-2000 (By fiscal year)

SOURCE: Congressional Budget Office.

NOTE: Numbers before 1991 reflect supplemental spending related to U.S. natural disasters. For 1991 and later years, numbers reflect

supplemental spending designated as emergency spending, which includes funds for some “nonnatural” disasters.

As noted earlier, domestic supplementals enacted in response to disasters—both natural and manmade—have risen dramatically in the past decade.

Data from two earlier Congressional Budget Office

(CBO) analyses of supplemental spending in the

1970s and 1980s, combined with data on domestic

emergency supplementals for 1991 through 2000,

show the path of such spending since 1976 (see Figure 4). The data are not strictly comparable, however. Before 1991, they only show supplemental

spending related to natural disasters (such as the

Northeast blizzard, floods, and drought in 1978; the

eruption of Mount St. Helens in 1980; and Hurricane

Hugo and the earthquake in Loma Prieta, California,

in 1989 and 1990). After 1991, the data include

some domestic supplemental spending that is not related to natural disasters—such as for the Los Angeles riots in 1992 and the aftermath of the Oklahoma

City bombing in 1995.

Mandatory Spending

The 9 percent of supplemental appropriations (net of

rescissions) in the 1990s classified as mandatory represent mandatory payments to trust funds and to appropriated entitlements (programs whose payments

are required under authorizing statutes but whose

obligations are funded through the annual appropriation process). The Congress cannot directly control

the need for mandatory supplementals. Circumstances may force a mandatory program to obligate

funds beyond the amounts provided in its regular appropriation, in which case a supplemental appropriation is necessary.13

13. Some of those mandatory supplementals represent discretionary

changes to mandatory programs made in supplemental appropriation acts. They are categorized here as mandatory spending, although they differ in concept from a “pure” mandatory supplemental, which responds to a current-law need for meeting the demand

for an entitlement.
March 2001 SUPPLEMENTAL APPROPRIATIONS IN THE 1990s 19

Most of the past decade’s mandatory supplementals were relatively large payments to the unemployment insurance trust fund, veterans’ compensation programs, and the Food Stamp program (see

Table 6). A 1993 supplemental that advanced $4 billion to the unemployment insurance trust fund to pay

for extended benefits for workers was the only piece

of the $16.3 billion emergency stimulus package proposed by President Clinton immediately after he took

office that became law.14 Veterans’ programs—most

frequently compensation for veterans with servicerelated disabilities—received relatively large supplementals in 1990 through 1994, 1997, and 1998.

Those supplementals represented cost-of-living adjustments and, in several cases, expansions of benefits.

The Food Stamp program (which is run by the

Department of Agriculture) received $1.2 billion in

supplemental funding in 1990, $1.5 billion in 1991,

and $400 million in 1992. Those amounts generally

represented underfunding in regular appropriations,

stemming from unanticipated changes in participation

rates and worse-than-predicted economic conditions.

As the economy improved over the decade, Food

Stamp supplementals became unnecessary. The Food

Stamp program was also the subject of the only rescission of mandatory budget authority in the 1990s

—$1.25 billion that had been appropriated to the program was rescinded in 1999.

Use of the Emergency

Designation

Emergency spending and supplemental spending

were closely aligned through most of the 1990s. Because the need for emergency funding generally

arises quickly, such spending cannot always be included in annual budget requests. Almost 92 percent

of the discretionary supplemental spending enacted

between 1991—the year the Budget Enforcement Act

took effect—and 1999 was designated as emergency

spending.

Before 1999, virtually all emergency spending

represented relatively modest supplemental appropriations in response to natural disasters or international

crises. But in the 1999 omnibus appropriation act—a

regular appropriation measure—more than $21 billion in appropriations were designated as emergencies. That number rose to $31 billion in 2000. Those

amounts are not included in the totals of this report

because they do not, strictly speaking, represent supplemental spending. But they represent a significant

change in the way the emergency designation has

been used.

By law, the emergency designation allows the

discretionary spending caps to be raised for both the

budget authority and outlays associated with emergency spending, in order to provide a “safety valve”

in cases of emergency. Thus, supplemental appropriations designated as emergency spending do not

cause a breach of the caps, do not trigger a sequestration, and are not required to be offset with rescissions

(although at times the President and the Congress

have been able to offset some emergency supplementals).

Some people argue that the availability of the

emergency designation has caused overall federal

spending to be higher than it would have been otherwise. That exception to the BEA caps makes emergency spending seem “free” even though it still adds

to federal spending and affects the budget deficit or

surplus. Many people also suspect that the availability of the emergency designation may have contributed to the underfunding of disaster relief programs

in the annual appropriation process—perhaps to keep

appropriations under the caps—and a corresponding

increase in the amount of supplemental funding

needed for those programs.

The term “emergency” is not defined in budgetprocess law. In 1991, in a report required by the

Congress, OMB attempted to develop a neutral definition of “emergency requirement” by stating that

such a requirement must meet five criteria:

o A necessary expenditure (an essential or vital

expenditure, not one that is merely useful or

beneficial);

o Sudden (coming into being quickly, not building

up over time);

14. The $4 billion advance was a mandatory supplemental, which CBO

netted against $4 billion of offsetting receipts in its cost estimate of

the supplemental bill.
20 SUPPLEMENTAL APPROPRIATIONS IN THE 1990s March 2001

Table 6.

Mandatory Supplemental Spending in the 1990s (By fiscal year, in millions of dollars of budget authority)

1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999

Total,

1990-

1999

By Appropriations Subcommittee

Agriculture and Rural Development 1,200 1,500 400 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 3,100

Commerce, Justice, State, and

the Judiciary 8 14 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 22

Defense 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

District of Columbia 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

Energy and Water Development 00000000000

Foreign Operations 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

Interior 434 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 434

Labor, Health and Human Services,

and Education 1 17 238 4,040a 61 0 0 0 0 0 4,357

Legislative Branch 00000000000

Military Construction 00000000000

Transportation 0 15 0 0 0 0 0 9 0 115 139

Treasury, Postal Service, and

General Government 00000900009

Veterans, Housing, and

Independent Agencies 435 963 500 475 801 0 0 928 550 0 4,652

Total 2,078 2,509 1,138 4,515 862 9 0 937 550 115 12,713

By Agency

Legislative Branch 00000000000

Judicial Branch 5 5 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 10

Department of Agriculture 1,457 1,500 400 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 3,357

Department of Commerce 00000000000

Department of Defense (Military) 00000000000

Department of Education 00000000000

Department of Energy 00000000000

Department of Health and

Human Services 0 17 0 40 0 0 0 0 0 0 57

Department of Housing and

 Urban Development 00000000000

Department of the Interior 177 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 177

Department of Justice 3 9 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 12

Department of Labor 1 0 238 4,000a 61 0 0 0 0 0 4,300

Department of State 00000000000

Department of Transportation 0 15 0 0 0 0 0 9 0 115 139

Department of the Treasury 00000000000

Department of Veterans Affairs 435 963 500 475 801 0 0 928 550 0 4,652

Corps of Engineers 00000000000

Other Defense (Civil programs) 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

Environmental Protection Agency 00000000000

Executive Office of the President 00000000000

Federal Emergency Management

Agency 00000000000

General Services Administration 00000000000

International Assistance Programs 00000000000

National Aeronautics and

Space Administration 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

Small Business Administration 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

Other Independent Agencies 0 0 0 0 0 9 0 0 0 0 9

Total 2,078 2,509 1,138 4,515 862 9 0 937 550 115 12,713

SOURCE: Congressional Budget Office.

a. Includes $4 billion in mandatory supplemental appropriations for unemployment insurance, which in other tables in this report is netted

against the same amount of mandatory offsetting receipts.
March 2001 SUPPLEMENTAL APPROPRIATIONS IN THE 1990s 21

1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000

-40

-20

0

20

40

60

Billions of Dollars of Budget Authority

Total

Nonemergency

Figure 5.

Total and Nonemergency Supplemental Spending Net of Offsetting Rescissions,

1990-2000 (By fiscal year)

SOURCE: Congressional Budget Office.

NOTE: Excludes regular appropriations designated as emergencies.

o Urgent (a pressing and compelling need requiring immediate action);

o Unforeseen (not predictable or seen beforehand

as a coming need, although an emergency that is

part of an overall level of anticipated emergencies, particularly when estimated in advance,

would not be “unforeseen”); and

o Not permanent (the need is temporary in nature).

Those criteria, with modifications, were incorporated into budget-process legislation that was considered but rejected by the House during the 106th

Congress.15 Currently, the Congress and the President are not required to adhere to that definition;

under the procedures that have been in effect since

1991, emergency spending is whatever they deem it

to be.16 Critics of the emergency designation cite

numerous examples of funding designated as emergency (in both supplemental and regular appropriations) that would seem to meet none of the criteria

listed above.

15. H.R. 853, the Comprehensive Budget Process Reform Act of 1999,

was defeated in the House on May 16, 2000, by a vote of 166 to

250.

16. For each appropriation amount—in regular or supplemental appropriations—deemed emergency spending, the Congress inserts

this language: “provided that such amount is designated by Congress as an emergency requirement pursuant to section 251(b)(2)

(D)(i) of the Balanced Budget and Emergency Deficit Control Act

of 1985, as amended.” The designation could appear in appropriation or authorization language and could be enacted in response to

a Presidential request or could be Congressionally initiated. Both

the President and the Congress must ultimately agree to the designation.
22 SUPPLEMENTAL APPROPRIATIONS IN THE 1990s March 2001

Offsetting Rescissions 

in the 1990s

Since enactment of the Deficit Control Act in 1985,

both the President and the Congress have sought to

offset new supplemental appropriations by rescinding

equal amounts of budget authority in other areas of

the budget. Throughout the 1990s, those offsets were

required for any new supplemental spending that was

not designated an emergency, since it would most

likely breach the caps on discretionary spending.

The offsets were encouraged but not required for supplementals designated as emergency spending.

Throughout the decade, the Congress was generally able to offset nonemergency discretionary supplementals with rescissions (see Figure 5 on preceding page). Since 1994, it was also able to offset some

emergency supplementals. Although those rescissions reduced the budgetary impact of supplemental

appropriations in most years, only in 1995 did they

equal or exceed new supplemental budget authority.

However, many people question whether those

rescissions actually offset the supplemental spending

with which they were linked. The key to answering

that question is to examine the rates at which the budget authority in question would actually be spent as

outlays. Coupling new supplemental budget authority with rescissions of equal amounts of budget authority that would have been spent very slowly or not

at all (had it not been rescinded) does not fully offset

the new supplemental. In fact, net spending can increase if the outlays associated with the new supplemental are higher than those associated with the rescissions intended to offset it. To cast more light on

that issue, CBO looked at the outlays that would have

resulted over one year or five years from various

amounts of budget authority that were appropriated

or rescinded during the 1990s.

First-Year Outlays

According to data from CBO’s Scorekeeping Unit—

which represent the best judgment of CBO analysts at

the time a supplemental appropriation or rescission

was under consideration—first-year outlays for enacted rescissions fully offset first-year outlays for

enacted supplementals only in 1995 and 1996 (see

Table 7). In other years, new supplemental appropriations caused a net increase in outlays.

The outlays estimated for rescinded budget authority can vary greatly: average first-year outlays

for rescissions range from a high of 51 percent of

rescinded budget authority in 1990 to a low of 1.2

percent of rescinded budget authority in 1998.

An often-heard criticism of budgetary practice

in the 1980s and 1990s is that the rescissions intended to offset supplementals were merely writeoffs of budget authority that, for a variety of reasons,

would probably never have been spent. Although

there may be some value in “cleaning up” budget or

contract authority that is not likely to be used, many

people question the use of such items as offsets, because even though the new supplemental budget authority may be offset, the new supplemental outlays

are not.

Indeed, examples of rescissions with relatively

low—or even zero—outlay rates abound. Most of

those were for fairly small amounts, but some were

sizable. For example, in 1995, more than $6.3 billion

in budget authority was rescinded from two accounts

of the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD): annual contributions for assisted housing and assistance for the renewal of expiring Section

8 subsidy contracts. The first-year outlays associated

with those two rescissions were just $19.6 million, or

less than 1 percent of the budget authority. Similarly,

$2.0 billion in Federal Aviation Administration

(FAA) grants-in-aid for airports that was rescinded in

1995 was estimated to have zero outlays the first

year.

In 1998, a rescission of $2.3 billion from the

HUD Section 8 reserve preservation account was estimated to have no effect on outlays. In most of the

other years of the decade, relatively large rescissions

of HUD budget authority were associated with very

low estimated first-year outlays. In several years,

additional rescissions of FAA grants-in-aid for airports as well as rescissions from the Highway Trust

Fund, the General Services Administration’s federal

building fund, and the Environmental Protection

Agency were estimated to have very low or zero firstyear outlay savings.
March 2001 SUPPLEMENTAL APPROPRIATIONS IN THE 1990s 23

Table 7.

Discretionary Supplemental Appropriations and Rescissions in the 1990s, by Budget Authority 

and Outlays (By fiscal year, in millions of dollars)

1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999

Discretionary Supplemental

Appropriations

Budget authority 4,296 46,103 18,524 9,844 12,655 6,407 4,512 7,960 5,727 13,252

Estimated outlays 2,944 34,536 4,188 1,776 3,323 1,626 399 1,169 1,030 3,716

Discretionary Rescissions

Budget authority -2,045 -331 -8,433 -2,499 -3,159 -18,940 -3,844 -7,980 -2,726 -769

Estimated outlays -1,042 -25 -2,505 -435 -514 -1,824 -1,189 -204 -34 -147

Discretionary Supplemental

Appropriations Net of

Rescissions

Budget authority 2,251 45,772 10,091 7,345 9,496 -12,533 668 -20 3,001 12,483

Estimated outlays 1,902 34,511 1,683 1,341 2,809 -198 -790 965 996 3,569

Memorandum:

First-Year Outlay Rates (Percent)

Supplementals 68.5 74.9 22.6 18.0 26.3 25.4 8.8 14.7 18.0 28.0

Rescissions 51.0 7.6 29.7 17.4 16.3 9.6 30.9 2.6 1.2 19.1

SOURCE: Congressional Budget Office.

Five-Year Outlays

Budget authority is often spent over multiple years—

outlays that do not occur in the first year can occur

later. It is possible that over time, some rescissions

do eventually offset the supplemental spending with

which they are linked. CBO’s Scorekeeping Unit

maintained data on estimated five-year outlays for 10

of the supplemental laws enacted in the 1990s that

contained rescissions intended as offsets. (Rescissions were sometimes also enacted in regular appropriation laws, but those rescissions were not always

intended by the appropriators to be used as offsets.)

Although the data are incomplete in some cases,

it is possible to compare five-year outlays from supplementals with five-year outlays from rescissions for

those 10 laws (see Table 8). Based on an examination of the individual accounts, it appears that the

rescissions mentioned above as having zero outlays

in the first year continued to have zero outlays for the

next four years as well. The conclusion seems to be

the same as for the one-year data: only in 1995 and

1996 did rescissions enacted as offsets to supplemental appropriations fully offset both budget authority

and outlays over a five-year scoring period. For other

years during the 1990s, rescinded budget authority

was not expected to generate enough outlay savings

over five years to fully offset the supplemental budget authority with which it was linked.
24 SUPPLEMENTAL APPROPRIATIONS IN THE 1990s March 2001

Table 8.

Five-Year Outlays from Selected Discretionary Supplemental Appropriation Laws and 

Offsetting Rescissions Since 1992 (By fiscal year, in millions of dollars)

1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999

2000 and

Beyond Total

P.L. 102-302 (1992)

Budget Authority 1,076 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1,076

Outlays 552 426 96 4 0 0 0 0 0 1,078

P.L. 102-368 (1992)

Budget Authority 10,226 927 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 11,153

Outlays 127 7,106 2,250 339 341 0 0 0 0 10,163

P.L. 103-50 (1993)

Budget Authority 0 485 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 485

Outlays 0 1,125 -284 -317 -215 -109 0 0 0 200

P.L. 103-211 (1994)

Budget Authority 0 0 7,304 30 0 0 0 0 0 7,334

Outlays 0 0 2,068 3,775 1,048 711 63 0 0 7,665

P.L. 104-6 (1995)

Budget Authority 0 0 0 -913 -100 0 0 0 0 -1,013

Outlays 0 0 0 -52 292 -2 -129 -130 0 -21

P.L. 104-19 (1995)

Budget Authority 0 0 0 -11,844 3,296 0 0 0 0 -8,548

Outlays 0 0 0 -160 -2,947 -738 -1,131 -4,328 0 -9,304

P.L. 104-134 (1996)

Budget Authority 0 0 0 0 -1,847 0 0 0 0 -1,847

Outlays 0 0 0 0 -202 122 74 -24 -9 -39

P.L. 105-18 (1997)

Budget Authority 0 0 0 0 0 -20 -84 0 0 -104

Outlays 0 0 0 0 0 965 1,985 1,298 2,444 6,692

P.L. 105-174 (1998)

Budget Authority 0 0 0 0 0 0 2,730 0 0 2,730

Outlays 0 0 0 0 0 0 986 1,515 644 3,145

P.L. 106-31 (1999)

Budget Authority 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 12,483 0 12,483

Outlays 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 3,677 10,906 14,583

Total

Budget Authority 11,302 1,412 7,304 -12,727 1,349 -20 2,646 12,483 0 23,749

Outlays 679 8,657 4,130 3,589 -1,683 949 1,848 2,008 13,985 34,162

SOURCE: Congressional Budget Office.

NOTE: P.L. = public law.
Appendix

Supplemental Appropriations

for Fiscal Year 2000

Although this report focuses on the fiscal 1990s

(the period from October 1, 1989, through

September 30, 1999), while it was being written the Congress and the President enacted more than

$17 billion in supplemental appropriations for fiscal

year 2000 (see Table A-1). That level (net of rescissions) was much higher than for any year of the previous decade, with the exception of 1991, whose

total was swelled by funding for the Persian Gulf

War.

Two appropriation laws provided supplemental

funds for 2000: divisions B and C of Public Law

106-246, the regular appropriation act funding military construction for fiscal year 2001, which was enacted on July 13, 2000; and title 9 of the regular

Table A-1.

Supplemental Appropriations Net of Rescissions, 1990-2000

(By fiscal year, in millions of dollars of budget authority)

1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000

Supplemental

Appropriations

Discretionary 4,296 46,103 18,524 9,844 12,655 6,407 4,512 7,960 5,727 13,252 17,387

Mandatory 2,078 2,509 1,138 515 a

 862 9 0 937 550 115 35

Total 6,374 48,612 19,662 10,359 13,517 6,416 4,512 8,897 6,277 13,367 17,422

Rescissions

Discretionary -2,045 -331 -8,433 -2,499 -3,159 -18,940 -3,844 -7,980 -2,726 -769 -470

Mandatory 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 -1,250 0

Total -2,045 -331 -8,433 -2,499 -3,159 -18,940 -3,844 -7,980 -2,726 -2,019 -470

Total Supplemental

Appropriations

Net of Rescissions 4,329 48,281 11,229 7,860 10,358 -12,524 668 917 3,551 11,348 16,952

SOURCE: Congressional Budget Office.

a. Excludes $4 billion in mandatory supplemental appropriations for unemployment insurance because that additional funding was offset by the

same amount of mandatory offsetting receipts.
26 SUPPLEMENTAL APPROPRIATIONS IN THE 1990s March 2001

Table A-2.

Supplemental Appropriations and Rescissions

in Fiscal Year 2000 (In millions of dollars)

Emergency

Nonemergency Total

Supplemental Appropriations

Defense Discretionary

Budget Authority 8,834 310 9,144

Outlays 1,187 4,853 6,040

Domestic Discretionary

Budget Authority 4,108 4,135 8,243

Outlays 891 6,939 7,830

Mandatory

Budget Authority 0 35 35

Outlays 0 31 31

Rescissions

Budget Authority 0 -470 -470

Outlays 0 -71 -71

Total Supplemental Appropriations

Net of Rescissions

Budget Authority 12,942 4,010 16,952

Outlays 2,078 11,752 13,830

SOURCE: Congressional Budget Office.

NOTE: This table gives supplemental funding and rescissions

from Public Laws 106-246 and 106-259.

appropriation act for defense, Public Law 106-259,

which was enacted on August 9, 2000. (Table A-2

shows the total budget authority and estimated outlays resulting from those two laws.)

The first law provided more than $15.1 billion

in supplemental funds, of which $11.2 billion was

designated as emergency spending. Most of that supplemental spending was defense funding (to pay for

U.S. military operations abroad and to repair damage

at overseas facilities caused by natural disasters) and

disaster relief funding (in response to the forest fires

in Los Alamos, New Mexico). Other emergency and

nonemergency funding in P.L. 106-246 represented

almost every appropriations subcommittee. The only

mandatory portion was a relatively small supplemental of $35 million for payments to states for foster

care and adoption assistance. That law also moved

pay dates that had been shifted from 2000 to 2001

back into 2000 for military and civilian pay, veterans’

compensation and pensions, and Supplemental Security Income payments. Repealing that previous shift

in pay dates affected only outlays, which is why nonemergency supplemental outlays in 2000 were much

higher than nonemergency budget authority.

The second law, P.L. 106-259, provided an additional $1.8 billion in emergency defense funding

for 2000. Of that amount, $1.1 billion was withdrawn from 2001 appropriations for the Overseas

Contingency Operations Transfer Fund and reappropriated to make it available for obligation in 2000.

In addition, the Congress and the President enacted some $470 million in rescissions for 2000—of

which $322 million involved defense funding. Most

of those rescissions were intended to offset newly

enacted supplemental spending.

In 2000, as in much of the previous decade, the

amount of supplemental appropriations and rescissions actually enacted was larger than the amount

requested by the President (see Table A-3). As mentioned earlier, tracking the fate of each individual

spending or rescission request is beyond the scope of

this analysis. In some cases, the Congress accepts the

President’s full request, increases or decreases it, or

rejects it outright. In other cases, the Congress initiates its own proposals. Enacted supplementals for

2000 totaled more than twice the amount requested;

likewise, well over twice the amount of rescissions

requested was enacted.
APPENDIX SUPPLEMENTAL APPROPRIATIONS FOR FISCAL YEAR 2000 27

Table A-3.

Supplemental Appropriations and Rescissions Requested by the President Versus Those Enacted,

1990-2000 (By fiscal year, in millions of dollars of budget authority)

1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000

Supplemental Appropriations

Discretionary

Requested 2,169 33,630 11,488 18,416 13,879 9,796 3,158 2,188 22,301 10,860 6,724

Enacted 4,296 46,103 18,524 9,844 12,655 6,407 4,512 7,960 5,727 13,252 17,387

Mandatory

Requested 441 0 738 575a 862 9 0 757 550 0 35

Enacted 2,078 2,509 1,138 515a 862 9 0 937 550 115 35

 Total

Requested 2,610 33,630 12,226 18,991 14,741 9,805 3,158 2,945 22,851 10,860 6,759

Enacted 6,374 48,612 19,662 10,359 13,517 6,416 4,512 8,897 6,277 13,367 17,422

Rescissions

Requested -227 -3,511 -7,881 -356 -3,141 -1,295 -1,053 -439 -43 -23 -229

Enactedb -2,045 -331 -8,433 -2,499 -3,159 -18,940 -3,844 -7,980 -2,726 -2,019 -470

SOURCE: Congressional Budget Office.

a. Excludes $4 billion in mandatory supplemental appropriations for unemployment insurance because that additional funding was offset by the

same amount of mandatory offsetting receipts.

b. Includes one unrequested mandatory rescission: $1.25 billion for the Food Stamp program in 1999.