PAYGO Is Already A Federal Law
We Need To Support The Repeal of P.L.111–139.
In 2010 under Obama the PAYGO rule was passed as federal law P.L. 111–139
“ On February 12, 2010, President Barack Obama signed H.J.Res. 45 into law, as P.L. 111–139. In addition to an increase in the statutory limit on the public debt to $14.294 trillion, the act contains two titles dealing with budgetary matters. Title I, referred to as the Statutory Pay-As-You-Go Act of 2010, establishes a new budget enforcement mechanism generally requiring that direct spending and revenue legislation enacted into law not increase the deficit.” — The Statutory Pay-As-You-Go Act of 2010: Summary and Legislative History
Thus, if the Congressional Budget Office numbers don’t match up to the federal budget, the White House will implement across the board spending cuts or sequestration (cancellation of budgetary resources), including reducing Medicare funding by 4%. Research and development at the National Institutes of Health would further be reduced. The FBI said of the last sequestration “New intelligence investigations were not being opened. Criminal cases were being closed. Informants couldn’t be paid. And there was not enough funding for agents to put gas in their cars”. For the 2013–2014 academic year, the Early Head Start and Head Start Programs eliminated services for 57,000 children to balance budgets diminished by the federal sequester.
“ Shortly after a congressional session ends, OMB finalizes the two PAYGO scorecards and determines whether a violation of the PAYGO requirement has occurred (i.e., if a debit has been recorded for the budget year on either scorecard). If so, the President issues a sequestration order that implements largely across-the-board cuts in nonexempt direct spending programs sufficient to remedy the violation by eliminating the debit. …The new statutory PAYGO process was created on a permanent basis; there are no expiration dates in the act. The process became effective upon enactment.”
According to the CBO, the GOP’s 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act is expected to add roughly $1.5 trillion in new debt over the next 10 years, Paygo would force spending cuts of $150 billion a year on average to offset the reduced revenue, so they forced Democrats to agree with a waiver of PAYGO, rather than cutting Medicare and other programs.
Therefore, if the PAYGO rules are not adopted by the House in the 116th Congress, it is possible the bills passed will not pass the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) litmus test, forcing sequestration. The OMB looks at the budget overall to determine whether these broad cuts must be made.
Nancy Pelosi and other congressional leaders have given the progressive caucus assurances that they’ll get the individual waivers needed to consider important progressive legislation in the house.
We should work towards the repeal of the PAYGO law(P.L. 111–139).
