Legislation Enacted in the 114th Congress That Affects Mandatory Spending or Revenues

This report summarizes the Congressional Budget Office’s estimates of the budgetary effects of laws enacted during the 114th Congress (calendar years 2015 and 2016) that affect mandatory spending or revenues. The cumulative budgetary effects of such legislation are presented—in billions of dollars—in Table 1. The specific budgetary effects of individual laws enacted during each session are shown—in millions of dollars—in Tables 2 and 3.

Table 2 includes legislation that was enacted in the first session of the 114th Congress and shows CBO’s estimates of budgetary effects for fiscal years 2015 through 2025. According to CBO’s estimates, those laws will increase budget deficits in each of those fiscal years, adding about $663 billion to the cumulative deficit for the 2015–2025 period. Those increases largely result from authorizing provisions in divisions O, P, and Q of the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2016 (Public Law 114-113), and from the Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act of 2015 (P.L. 114-10), which CBO estimates will increase deficits over the 11-year period by $680 billion and $141 billion, respectively. Most of the increase in deficits stems from divisions P and Q of P.L. 114-113, which extended—retroactively and prospectively—certain provisions that had reduced collections of corporate and individual income taxes and excise taxes. Increases in the deficit will be partially offset by decreases stemming from the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2015 (P.L. 114-74) and the Fixing America’s Surface Transportation Act (P.L. 114-94), which together will reduce deficits by a total of $151 billion over the 2015–2025 period, CBO estimates.

Table 3 includes legislation enacted in the second session and, in most cases, shows the agency’s estimates for fiscal years 2016 through 2026. In CBO’s estimation, those laws increased the deficit in fiscal year 2016 but will decrease deficits in all subsequent years through 2026. In total, CBO estimates, those laws will decrease deficits by about $7 billion over the 2016–2026 period. Most of that reduction is attributable to the 21st Century Cures Act (P.L. 114-255), which CBO estimates will reduce deficits by $6 billion over that period.

The time periods used in this report are consistent with those used in the cost estimates that CBO provided to the House and Senate Budget Committees when each law was enacted. The tables exclude laws whose budgetary effects CBO estimated to be insignificant—that is, those that were estimated to increase or decrease annual deficits in the 11-year estimating period and the cumulative deficit for that period by no more than $500,000. A total of 65 such laws were enacted during the 114th Congress.

The laws are listed in the order in which they were enacted. Each entry provides the number of the underlying bill that was considered by the Congress as well as a link to the relevant CBO cost estimate whenever possible. The amounts in a referenced cost estimate may differ from the final estimates shown in the table because legislative provisions or CBO’s analysis may have changed between the time that the agency provided its initial cost estimate and the law’s enactment.