Sessions' Sequestration Transparency Bill Signed Into Law
By: Stephen Crews
Updated: August 7, 2012
U.S.
Sen.
Jeff Sessions (R-AL), Ranking Member of the Senate Budget Committee,
issued the following statement today after President Obama signed the
bill Sessions co-authored with Senate Republican Conference Chairman
John Thune (R-SD) that would require the Administration
to submit a report on its plan for implementing nearly $1 trillion in
required sequestration cuts:
"Although
OMB resisted our attempts to get this information, I'm glad the
Administration has realized its obligation to lay out for Congress and
the American people just how the sequester would be implemented. If
these cuts are not reorganized, defense spending--which represents just
one-sixth of the federal budget--will have to absorb
half of the planned cuts. This is in addition to the nearly $500 billion
in 10-year cuts that are already in place. More than just being
disproportionate, such deep cuts would, in the words of the Secretary of
Defense, 'do catastrophic damage to the military.'
I look forward to receiving OMB's report and working with my colleagues
without delay to make sure that does not happen."
H.R.
5872, the Sequestration Transparency Act, is the House version of
legislation originally introduced by Senators Sessions and Thune. The
law requires the Obama Administration to provide taxpayers and Congress,
within 30 days of enactment, with its plan for implementing the
required sequestration cuts for defense and non-defense
programs that are scheduled to occur on January 2, 2013. The 30-day
window for the Office of Management and Budget to produce the report
closes on September 6, 2012:
The
Budget Control Act (BCA), enacted in August of 2011, requires
across-the-board spending
reductions of $984 billion to be distributed evenly over nine years, or
$109.3 billion per year, due to the failure of the Supercommittee
process. Under sequestration, each year $54.7 billion in reductions will
be necessary for both defense and non-defense
categories. The defense sequester cuts are in addition to $487 billion
in defense cuts over 10 years that were put in place last year after the
BCA took effect.
The Sequestration Transparency Act overwhelmingly passed in the House of Representatives
on July 19, 2012, by a vote of 414 to 2, and passed in the Senate by unanimous consent on July 25, 2012.
