Omnibus bill: Spending cap? What spending cap?

 Last year Republican Paul Ryan and Democrat Patty Murray introduced a budget bill entitled the  Bipartisan Budget Act of 2013 which was eventually signed by the President. You may recall that this bill capped spending for 2014 at $1.012 trillion.

  John Boehner’s omnibus spending bill came in at that number so at least we have that going for us, right? Well, not if this story is true. Conservative Review is claiming that this budget includes gimmicks which would allow the Federal government to exceed the spending cap for 2014.

  Here is more:

 Like most budget bills, far from cutting spending, this bill actually adds to the deficit.  While the bill is being advertised as adhering to the budget cap of $1.013.6 trillion, it actually authorizes billions more in spending.  Managers of the bill employed a special budget gimmick, which allows Congress to shift around payments on programs outside of the annual budget bill and gives them cover to increase spending in this budget bill by $19 billion. 

Additionally, war spending, known as “Overseas Contingency Operations (OCO),” are exempt from the budget caps.  Last year, Congress authorized $85 billion in OCO spending, and due to the drawdown of forces in the Middle East, Obama initially requested only $59 billion.  This bill authorizes $74 billion in war spending.  There is also another $6 billion in disaster relief and the $5 billion in Ebola funding, which is designated as emergency spending and exempt from the caps.   None of the extra spending is offset with spending cuts.  Taken as a whole, this bill will total $1.119 trillion, over $85 billion more than the agreed-upon discretionary budget caps.

  Once again it would appear as if things are not quite what they seem to be on the surface.