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Published: 2001

Total Pages: 40

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Supplemental appropriations were smaller during most of the 199Os than in the previous two decades. (Such appropriations provide additional funding to a federal agency for a fiscal year already in progress.) Nevertheless, they were a cause of concern in a decade characterized by efforts to control federal spending and lower the budget deficit. In the eyes of its supporters, supplemental spending gives the Congress flexibility to respond to problems or priorities that may not have been anticipated during the regular cycle of annual appropriations. In the view of its detractors, supplemental spending allows lawmakers to circumvent budgetary enforcement mechanisms and to deliberately underfund programs in regular appropriation laws, which often have a higher profile than supplemental laws. his Congressional Budget Office (CBO) study-prepared at the request of the Senate Committee on the Budget-describes the size and content of supplemental appropriation laws from fiscal year 1990 through 1999. It also examines the extent to which those supplemental appropriations were offset by rescissions. The study updates two previous CBO publications: Supplemental Appropriations in the 1970s (July 1981) and Supplemental Appropriations in the 1980s (February 1990). It incorporates information from those reports to show trends in supplemental appropriations over the past three decades.