Tighten Washington's Belt Act of 2010
Latest action. Referred to the House Committee on the Budget.
Tighten Washington's Belt Act of 2010 - Requires the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), within 15 days after the end of a session, to issue a Discretionary Sequestration Report and, if in such report OMB estimates that any sequestration is required, the President to issue an order (effective on issuance) fully implementing without change all such sequestrations.
Requires the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), within 10 days after the end of session, also to issue a Discretionary Sequestration Report.
Subjects to permanent cancellation any budgetary resources sequestered from any account, except those in special fund accounts or offsetting collections sequestered in appropriation accounts. Applies the same percentage sequestration to all programs, projects, and activities within a budget account.
Requires the Comptroller General, upon request of the congressional budget committees, to report to Congress and the President on the extent to which each such issued presidential order or OMB or CBO report complies with all of the requirements contained in this Act, either certifying that the order fully and accurately complies with such requirements or indicating the respects in which it does not.
Requires Discretionary Sequestration Reports for each of FY2011-FY2015 to set forth estimates for: (1) the applicable discretionary spending limits; (2) the new budget authority and the breach, if any; (3) the sequestration percentages necessary to eliminate the breach; and (4) the level of enacted sequesterable budget authority, and resulting estimated outlays to be sequestered for each account.
Requires the OMB report to explain: (1) any differences between OMB and CBO estimates for any breach and any required discretionary sequestration percentages; and (2) differences in the amount of sequesterable resources for any budget account to be reduced if such difference is greater than $5 million.
Establishes discretionary spending limits for FY2011-FY2015.
Sets forth sequestration enforcement mechanisms.
Subjects all discretionary budget authority to such sequestration procedures, except: (1) benefits and compensation provided to active duty military and to veterans defined as discretionary spending; (2) provisions of discretionary spending legislation the President and Congress designate as emergency requirements; and (3) salaries or other expenditures that may not be reduced on account of constitutional requirements.
Written by analysts at the Congressional Research Service and published on Congress.gov, not by Civibrief. Summarized at the "Introduced in House" stage on January 20, 2010. It describes the bill, it is not the legal text.
Where is it in the process, and what happens next?
4 steps remain before this bill could become law.
The record's latest action, on January 20, 2010: Referred to the House Committee on the Budget.
- Clearing the committees it was referred to, and being scheduled for a floor vote
- Passage by the House
- Passage by the Senate
- The President's signature. If the President vetoes it, two-thirds of both chambers must vote to override.
How likely is it to become law?
Civibrief does not forecast outcomes and this page has no opinion about this one. What the record supports is a base rate, which is a fact about the whole pile, not a prediction about this measure.
In the 111th Congress (2009-10), 383 of the 10,778 bills and joint resolutions introduced became law, about 3.6 percent. That count covers every measure at every stage, including the many that never left committee.
This one is not there yet: 4 steps are still outstanding, listed above.
Has anyone actually voted on it?
No. No roll call in this Congress cites this measure. That is the ordinary outcome: most measures never reach a recorded floor vote, and a committee ends most of them simply by not acting.
A vote is not the only thing that happens to a measure. Hearings, markups, and referrals are all recorded actions, and none of them is a vote of the full chamber.
Who is behind it?
J. Forbes (R-VA) introduced it on January 20, 2010. No cosponsors are recorded.
Cosponsoring is a formal signature on the text. It is not a commitment to vote for the measure, it does not bind anyone's party, and a long list of cosponsors is a measure of attention rather than of prospects.
How long has it been in play?
It was introduced on January 20, 2010, 6124 days ago. The most recent recorded action was 6124 days ago, on January 20, 2010.
Measures do not carry over. Anything the 111th Congress has not finished by January 3, 2011 dies when the term ends, and has to be introduced again from the start in the next Congress.
Every answer above is assembled from this measure's own record on Congress.gov and from published counts of what Congress has passed before. Civibrief does not predict outcomes and takes no position on any measure.
Vote history
- HouseIn committee, no floor vote yet
- SenateAwaits House passage
- PresidentAwaits both chambers