OMB details sequester cuts in report to Congress
The government's budget overseer updates its mandated report with the latest facts and figures.
What: The Office of Management and Budget's March 1 breakdown of sequestration cuts that must now be implemented.
Why: OMB is required by law to report to Congress the specific percentages and dollar amounts that the sequester will trim from various agencies and programs. This report, issued once sequestration was officially triggered March 1, shows that discretionary defense spending must be cut by 7.8 percent in fiscal 2013, while discretionary non-defense spending faces 5 percent cuts across the board.
Those percentages are lower than OMB had projected in late 2012, due to "buy-down" cuts that were implemented in the Jan. 1 legislation that delayed the sequester until March 1. However, fiscal 2013 is already five months old, so budget cuts of 7.8 percent and 5 percent could feel like 13.4 percent and 8.5 percent, respectively, when squeezed into the remaining seven months.
The specified cuts include:
• $32 million from the Census Bureau's non-salary program expenses;
• $31 million from the Defense Department's acquisition workforce development fund;
• $29 million from the National Institute of Standards and Technology's scientific and technical research;
• $17 million from Internal Revenue Service business systems modernization;
• $16 million from the Homeland Security Department's office of the CIO;
• $10 million from the Housing and Urban Development Department's information technology portfolio;
• $2 million from the Justice Department's information sharing technology operations;
• $1 million from the Labor Department's information technology modernization efforts;
• $1 million from the Transportation Department's cyber security initiatives; and
• $2 million from the Merit Systems Protection Board, which will soon be fielding all the furlough-related challenges and complaints.
Verbatim: "According to analysis by outside experts, sequestration would reduce real GDP growth for 2013 by 0.5 to 0.7 percentage points were it to continue for the rest of the calendar year."