Debt Man Walking: Translating the Debt Bill's First Title

Title I (p. 2)- Ten-Year Discretionary Caps with Sequester
Section 101- Enforcing Discretionary Spending Limits

• If there is a budget breach in any fiscal year, then 15 days after Congress finishes a session, a "sequestration" takes place to fix the breach.
• If there is a breach (i.e., if some area spends too much in a year), then they will get cut by a certain amount. Admittedly, between legalese and math, I don't understand the specifics of what the cutting process will be.

There are, however, categories that are exempt from this.

• It appears as though the President can make some personnel exempt from the "you spent too much" cuts, and if he does, then a compensation has to come out of other peoples' budgets. Those "other people", however, cannot be military.
• If something spends too much by June 30 of any year, then during the next fiscal year that program's budget will be reduced by the amount it went over.
• If a program takes effect on the current fiscal year and goes over, they get nailed with cuts 15 days later.

• As soon as is practical, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) will come out with its estimates on each program's financial impact. Around the same time, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) will release its own estimates. If there are significant differences between the two reports, the OMB has to step up and explain where the differences lie.
• OMB and CBO estimates will be made using up-to-date calculation methods and definitions (Sec. 101, (a)(7)(C)). This is an example of information I'm not covering, since it's kind of "duh".
• If it is decided that the War on Terror or other battles require extra money, then they get it (Sec 101, (b)(2)(A)).

"Continuing Disability Reviews" and "redeterminations" for Social Security Titles II(2) and XVI (16) are capped at a certain amount of funding by year. This starts at 623 million for 2012 and rises each year until 2021, where it gets 1.31 billion dollars. (Sec. 101, (b)(2)(B)(I-X)).

• CDRs are defined in the Social Security Act under sections 221(i) and 1614(a)(4).
• "Redetermination" means a review of eligibility for services, as defined under the Social Security Act, sections 1611(c)(1) and 1614(a)(3)(H).

• The Department of Health and Human Services has a set amount of money to use for fighting health care fraud; it starts at 270 million in 2012 and rises each year until 2021, when it has 496 million (Sec. 101, (b)(2)(C)(I-X)).
• Disaster Relief can increase its funding to an amount equal to the amount pre-set for it (so, it can double its funding?), as long as that does not come out to be more than the average amount spent on disaster relief for the previous ten years.
• The overall discretionary spending limits are set in Sec. 101, (c)(1-10); in 2012, for example, the government has 684 billion in "security" spending and 359 billion in "nonsecurity" spending approved, for a grand total of 1.043 trillion dollars. That rises to 1.234 trillion dollars in 2021, though that isn't broken down by security/nonsecurity spending.

Section 102- Definitions
Starting on page 16, this section defines the technical jargon we've encountered so far. As I've already tried to translate this document into English, I won't belabor the point; if you want the word for word definitions of the Legalese, pages 16-18 are your friends.

Section 103- Reports and Orders
This section just contains some amendments to older bills, striking out (for instance) dates we've already passed and setting new ones.

Section 104- Expiration
This section nullifies some sections of the Emergency Deficit Control Act of 1985.

Section 105- Amendments to the Congressional Budget and Impoundment Control Act of 1974

• This section is pretty dense, but from what I can tell, if the House takes action that actively reduces revenue, that effect on the budget won't be counted towards various parts of the Act that titles this section. That sounds like it could be trouble.
• It is now "out of order" for the House or the Senate to try and put forward anything that would exceed the discretionary spending limits set forth in this bill.

Section 106- Senate Budget Enforcement

• This section outlines procedure on how the budget limits will be enforced (obviously), stating dates that certain motions have to be filed and through which mechanisms they will be handled.