Budget Issues: Budget Enforcement Compliance Report.

This report responds to your request that we assess compliance by the Office of Management and Budget OMB and the Congressional Budget Office CBO with the requirements of the Balanced Budget and Emergency Deficit Control Act of 1985, more commonly known as Gramm-Rudman-Hollings GRH, as amended. The Budget Enforcement Act of 1997 BEA-97 extended GRH budget enforcement provisions through fiscal year 2002 and made other technical changes. Our assessment covers OMB and CBO reports issued on legislation enacted during the 1st session of the 105th Congress, which ended on November 13, 1997. To assess compliance with GRH, we reviewed 0MB and CBO reports issued under the act to determine if they complied with all of the acts requirements. To accomplish this, we reviewed the OMB and CBO preview, update, and final Sequestration reports to determine if they reflected all of the technical requirements specified in GRH, such as 1 estimates of the discretionary spending limits, 2 explanations of any adjustments to the limits, 3 estimates of the amount of net deficit increase or decrease, and 4 the sequestration percentages necessary to achieve the required reduction in the event of a sequester. We interviewed 0MB and CBO officials to obtain explanations for differences between reports. We also reviewed 0MB and CBO estimates for the 78 provisions in appropriations laws that the President had canceled using his line item veto authority before OMB issued its final sequester report.