REVENUE PROVISIONS IN ANNUAL APPROPRIATIONS ACTS

CRS Report for Congress
Revenue Provisions in
Annual Appropriations Acts
Updated November 23, 1998
Robert Keith
Specialist in American National Government
Government Division


Congressional Research Service ˜ The Library of Congress

ABSTRACT
Under the standing rules and practices of the House of Representatives and the Senate,
legislation affecting the revenues of the federal government usually is considered separately
from legislation providing annual appropriations to federal agencies. Notwithstanding this
general feature of the legislative process, revenue provisions are included in annual
appropriations acts from time to time. This report discusses the procedural context of this
practice and identifies several such provisions enacted during the 1980s and 1990s.
On the basis of information provided by the Congressional Budget Office, six annual
appropriations acts enacted during FY1991-1999 included revenue provisions. Three of the
measures were regular appropriations acts and the other three were omnibus appropriations
acts. Two of the six measures involved revenue increases (ranging from $25 million to $967
million over five years); the other four involved revenue losses (ranging from $55 million
to $516 million over five years).
This report will not be updated. (For related information, see Legislative Provisions
(“Riders”) in Omnibus Appropriations Acts: Recent Examples, CRS Report 98-834,
updated October 28, 1998.)



Revenue Provisions in Annual Appropriations Acts
Summary
Under the standing rules and practices of the House of Representatives and the
Senate, legislation affecting the revenues of the federal government usually is
considered separately from legislation providing annual appropriations to federal
agencies. Coordination of revenue and spending decisions occurs under the
congressional budget process, in which the appropriate aggregate levels of revenue
and spending for a multi-year period are set forth in a concurrent resolution on the
budget. The revenue and spending legislation necessary to implement budget
resolution policies, however, usually is developed under separate and distinct
procedures. Notwithstanding this general feature of the legislative process, revenue
provisions are included in annual appropriations acts from time to time.
During the 1980s and 1990s, revenue provisions have been included in regular
appropriations acts on several occasions. For the most part, these provisions have
been relatively minor in scope, with modest budgetary impact. However, as
discussed in this report, four measures enacted in the late 1990s involved 5-year
revenue losses in excess of $150 million. Nearly all legislative changes affecting
revenues during this period have occurred in revenue bills and reconciliation
measures considered under regular legislative procedures, with a multi-year revenue
impact of hundreds of billions of dollars. In some cases, provisions involving
offsetting collections with a substantial budgetary impact have been included in
annual appropriations acts, but such transactions are not counted as revenues.
On the basis of information provided by the Congressional Budget Office, six
annual appropriations acts enacted during FY1991-1999 included revenue provisions:
(1) the Omnibus Consolidated Rescissions and Appropriations Act, FY1996 (P.L.
104-134); (2) the VA-HUD Appropriations Act, FY1997 (P.L. 104-204); (3) the
Omnibus Consolidated Appropriations Act, FY1997 (P.L. 104-208); (4) the
Treasury-Postal Appropriations Act, FY1998 (P.L. 105-61); (5) the VA-HUD
Appropriations Act, FY1999 (P.L. 105-276); and (6) the Omnibus Consolidated and
Supplemental Emergency Appropriations Act, FY1999 (P.L. 105-277). Three of the
six measures were regular appropriations acts; the other three were omnibus
appropriations acts. Two of the measures involved revenue increases (ranging from
$25 million to $967 million over 5 years); the other four involved revenue losses
(ranging from $55 million to $516 million over 5 years).
The revenue provisions included in these six acts dealt with such matters as the
adjustment of monetary penalties for inflation; the required use by federal agencies
of electronic fund transfers; newborns’ and mothers’ health protection; parity in
certain mental health benefits; bank insurance funds; a one-time open season so that
federal employees in the Civil Service Retirement System could choose to switch to
the newer Federal Employees Retirement System; a change to the Freddie Mac
charter involving default loss protection (which subsequently was repealed); the
extension of expiring tax provisions; Medicare-related provisions; and revenue
offsets.



Contents
Background ................................................ 1
Definition of Terms......................................1
Committee Jurisdiction....................................1
Legislative Procedures....................................2
Budget Enforcement Procedures ............................4
Recent Practices ............................................5
List of Tables
Table 1. Annual Appropriations Acts Containing Revenue Provisions:
FY1991-1999 ..............................................8



Revenue Provisions in
Annual Appropriations Acts
Background
Under the standing rules and practices of the House of Representatives and the
Senate, legislation affecting the revenues of the federal government usually is
considered separately from legislation providing annual appropriations to federal
agencies. Coordination of revenue and spending decisions occurs under the
congressional budget process, in which the appropriate aggregate levels of revenue
and spending for a multi-year period are set forth in a concurrent resolution on the
budget. The revenue and spending legislation necessary to implement budget
resolution policies, however, usually is developed under separate and distinct
procedures. Notwithstanding this general feature of the legislative process, revenue
provisions are included in annual appropriations acts from time to time. The purpose
of this report is to briefly assess the extent of this practice in recent years.
Definition of Terms. Revenues of the federal government (also called receipts)
are income derived principally from the government’s exercise of its sovereign
powers. They consist mainly of individual and corporate income taxes and social
insurance taxes, such as the Social Security payroll tax. In addition, revenues include
excise taxes; customs duties and tariffs; certain fines, fees, and user charges; gifts and
donations; and certain other income.
Budget authority is the first step in the spending process. It represents the legal
authority for agencies to create financial commitments by incurring obligations.
Annual appropriations are one of the most widely known forms of budget authority.
Outlays, which complete the spending process, occur when obligations are paid off.
For budget enforcement purposes, all federal spending is divided into two
categories—discretionary spending (which is spending controlled through the annual
appropriations process) and direct spending (which is spending controlled outside of
the annual appropriations process). All discretionary spending, and some direct
spending (e.g., Medicaid), is funded in annual appropriations acts. The remainder
of direct spending is funded through devices such as permanent appropriations (e.g.,
Social Security and Medicare), borrowing authority, and contract authority.
Some funds received by accounts in the federal budget are treated as offsetting
collections, which are deducted from budget authority and outlays instead of being
counted as revenue. Offsetting collections involve business-like or market-oriented
activities, or payments from one federal account to another.
Committee Jurisdiction. Both the House and Senate split jurisdiction over
revenues and annual appropriations between two different committees. In the House,



jurisdiction over “revenue matters generally” and other specific revenue matters is
vested in the Ways and Means Committee by Clause (1)(s) of Rule X. The
Appropriations Committee is assigned jurisdiction over “appropriations of the
revenue for the support of the Government” under Clause (1)(b) of Rule X. While
the House Appropriations Committee exercises sole jurisdiction over all
discretionary spending, most of the other House committees (including the Ways and
Means Committee) have jurisdiction over some direct spending.
Similarly, in the Senate, Paragraph (1)(i) of Rule XXV assigns jurisdiction over
“revenue matters generally” and other specific revenue matters to the Finance
Committee. The Appropriations Committee is given jurisdiction, under Paragraph
(1)(b) of Rule XXV, over “appropriations of the revenue for the support of the
Government.” As is the case in the House, the Senate Appropriations Committee
exercises sole jurisdiction over all discretionary spending, but most of the other
Senate committees (including the Finance Committee) have jurisdiction over some
direct spending.
Legislative Procedures. Under the regular legislative procedures of the House
and Senate, revenue measures are considered separately from annual appropriations
acts. Revenue measures often are constrained in their scope solely to revenue
matters; such measures may range from the imposition or waiver of a single tariff to
extensive changes in the Internal Revenue Code. Sometimes, omnibus measures
dealing with direct spending programs may include one or more revenue titles along
with titles containing direct spending and other legislative provisions. For example,
legislation pertaining to Social Security or Medicare may contain provisions dealing
with payroll taxes and other revenue features pertinent to the program, as well as
provisions dealing with the program’s eligibility criteria and benefit payments. In
some instances, such as for highway and aviation spending, the Ways and Means
Committee and Finance Committee develop the revenue portion (i.e., excise taxes)
of the legislation, while other House and Senate committees develop the spending
portion. During the 1980s and 1990s, the Ways and Means Committee and the
Finance Committee also have developed revenue reconciliation bills in response to
reconciliation directives in the annual budget resolution.
The House and Senate Appropriations Committees typically report three
different types of annual appropriations acts each year. Each of the 13 different
House and Senate Appropriations subcommittees develop one regular appropriations
act, which provides budget authority to federal agencies for the next fiscal year.
Supplemental appropriations acts provide additional budget authority during the
current fiscal year when the regular appropriation is insufficient or to finance
activities not provided for in the regular appropriation. Continuing appropriations
acts, also called continuing resolutions (or CRs) provide stop-gap funding for
agencies that have not received a regular appropriation. Any of these three types of
annual appropriations acts may become an omnibus appropriations act if it is
expanded to encompass agencies and accounts normally covered in two or more of
the regular appropriations acts (or, in the case of a continuing resolution, if it goes
beyond formula-funding for multiple bills to include the full text of the regular
appropriations).



The Constitution, in Article I, Section 7, requires that revenue measures
originate in the House. By custom, the annual appropriations acts originate in the
House as well.1
In the House, the jurisdictions of the Appropriations Committee and the Ways
and Means Committee are protected by Rule XXI. In order to keep the consideration
of annual appropriations acts separate from the consideration of substantive
legislation, Clauses 2(b) and 2(c) of the rule prohibit the inclusion of “legislative
provisions” (i.e, provisions changing existing law) in general appropriations bills,
while Clause 5(a) prohibits the inclusion of appropriations in legislation reported by
any committee other than the Appropriations Committee. Similarly, Clause 5(b) of
the rule bars the inclusion of any “tax or tariff measure” in legislation reported by any
committee other than the Ways and Means Committee. Revenue provisions,
inasmuch as they involve changing existing (or creating new) substantive law,
normally would be regarded as a type of “legislative provision” in an appropriations
act. The House does not regard continuing resolutions to be general appropriations
bills.
In the Senate, Rule XVI had served for many years to separate the consideration
of legislative and appropriations matters in a fashion similar to that employed by the
House. In 1995, however, during the Senate’s consideration of a supplemental
appropriations bill, the chair’s ruling that a particular amendment offered by a
Senator was out of order as legislation was overturned by the full Senate. The2
Senate has not enforced the prohibition against legislative provisions in annual
appropriations acts since that time.
During the 1980s and 1990s, various factors contributed to the greater use of
omnibus appropriations acts, particularly escalating disagreements between the
President and Congress over general budgetary policy and policies in key program
areas. At first, the omnibus appropriations acts took the form of continuing
resolutions, but on two occasions in recent years several of the regular appropriations
bills simply have been merged into an “omnibus consolidated” appropriations act.
In most instances, a considerable portion of these omnibus appropriations acts
has consisted of legislative provisions. The two main reasons for this practice are3
that: (1) legislation stalled at the end of a session, that otherwise might not advance,


When House action on appropriations bills is delayed, the Senate sometimes1
expedites its actions by considering a Senate-numbered bill up to the stage of final passage.
Upon receipt of the House-passed bill in the Senate, it is amended with the text that the
Senate already has agreed to (as a single amendment) and then passed by the Senate. In this
manner, the Senate continues to adhere to the custom of House origination of appropriations
acts.
See the consideration in the Congressional Record of March 16, 1995, of an2
amendment offered by Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison to H.R. 889, a supplemental
appropriations and rescission act.
For information on this practice, see Legislative Provisions (“Riders”) in Omnibus3
Appropriations Acts: Recent Examples, by Robert Keith, CRS Report 98-834 GOV,
updated October 28, 1998, 6 pages.

can be carried through to enactment on the funding bill, which is considered to be
“must-pass” legislation; and (2) legislation without strong support, especially
legislation that faces a veto threat, may have a greater chance of prevailing when it
is mixed in with high-priority funding matters.
The practice of including major legislative provisions in omnibus appropriations
acts sometimes generates considerable controversy. Some Members decry the
practice as undermining the deliberative process. They assert that in many instances
the inclusion of riders in lengthy and complex appropriations bills may require
Members to vote on matters with which they are largely unfamiliar, may give them
too little time to debate these matters, may usurp the prerogatives of the relevant
authorizing committees, and may shield from proper scrutiny legislation that would
not prevail on its own merits.
Advocates of the practice, however, argue that it provides needed flexibility to
the legislative process, allowing Congress to process its business more efficiently in
the waning days of a session. Many such provisions, they maintain, already have
been given a thorough review under regular procedures and their inclusion in annual
appropriations bills often is at the behest of authorizing committee members.
Budget Enforcement Procedures. Revenue measures and annual
appropriations bills, as well as other types of budgetary legislation, are subject to two
different sets of budget enforcement procedures. First, under the congressional4
budget process, such legislation must adhere to constraints established by the yearly
budget resolution. Potential violations of the appropriate budget resolution levels
may be blocked by points of order established under the Congressional Budget Act
of 1974. In the case of revenue bills, Section 311 of the act prohibits any measure
that would cause estimated revenues to fall below the revenue floor set in the budget
resolution. The Senate, but not the House, supplements this requirement with a
special “pay-as-you-go” rule that requires revenue (and direct spending) legislation
to be deficit neutral over a one-year, 5-year and 10-year period. This special Senate
rule also is enforced by a point of order.
In the case of annual appropriations, Section 311 of the act generally bars annual
appropriations acts from breaching the aggregate levels of new budget authority and
outlays set in the budget resolution. Further, Section 302 of the act requires that such
bills conform to the spending allocations made to the Appropriations Committees
under the budget resolution, and to the subdivisions of spending allocations made to
each of the subcommittees.
The second set of enforcement procedures stems from the Balanced Budget and
Emergency Deficit Control Act of 1985, as amended by the Budget Enforcement Act
of 1990, the Budget Enforcement Act of 1997, and other laws. Under the act, all
revenue and direct spending legislation enacted during a session must be
deficit-neutral under a “pay-as-you-go” (PAYGO) requirement. Also, all


Budget enforcement procedures, as well as other aspects of the budget process, are4
explained in: Manual on the Federal Budget Process, by Robert Keith and Allen Schick,
CRS Report 98-720 GOV, August 28, 1998, 184 pages.

discretionary spending is subject to annual statutory limits (on both budget authority
and outlays). These procedures apply to legislation enacted through FY2002;
violations are enforced by means of sequestration, a procedure under which largely
across-the-board spending cuts in nonexempt programs are made automatically
shortly after the end of a congressional session.
Recent Practices
During the 1980s and 1990s, revenue provisions have been included in regular
appropriations acts on several occasions. For the most part, these provisions have
been relatively minor in scope, with modest budgetary impact. However, as
discussed below, two measures enacted in the late 1990s involved 5-year revenue
losses in excess of $150 million. Nearly all legislative changes affecting revenues
during this period have occurred in revenue bills and reconciliation measures
considered under regular legislative procedures, with a multi-year revenue impact of
hundreds of billions of dollars. In some cases, provisions involving offsetting
collections with a substantial budgetary impact have been included in annual
appropriations acts, but such transactions are not counted as revenues.
In the House and Senate, revenue provisions, as a type of “legislative
provision,” may be included in annual appropriations acts in several ways. First, the
rules that enforce the boundaries between legislation and appropriations are not
self-enforcing; in order for a potential violation to be stopped, a Member must
successfully raise a point of order and it must be sustained if challenged. Second,
like any other rules of the House and Senate, these rules may be waived in various
ways (in the House, it is not uncommon to waive Rule XXI under a “special rule”
governing consideration of the annual appropriations act). Finally, the rules are not
fully comprehensive in their coverage and application. Both House Rule XXI and
Senate Rule XVI afford some exceptions (particularly in the Senate); in recent years,
as previously mentioned, the Senate has chosen not to enforce this portion of the rule
at all, pursuant to the 1995 precedent. Further, because the House does not regard
continuing resolutions to be general appropriations bills, Rule XXI does not apply to
their consideration.
The infrequent occurrence of revenue provisions in annual appropriations acts,
and their typically limited scope, make it difficult to identify such provisions in a
systematic fashion. Perusal of the text of selected annual appropriations acts of the

1980s reveals several examples:


!Section 139 (95 Stat. 967) of a continuing resolution for FY1982 (P.L. 97-51;
October 1, 1981) amended the Internal Revenue Code to provide that
Members of Congress be treated in the same fashion as private citizens with
respect to the dollar limits on tax deductions for living expenses while away
from home;
!Section 154 (96 Stat. 1203) of a continuing resolution for FY1983 (P.L.
97-276; October 2, 1982) amended the Tariff Schedules of the United States
(19 U.S.C. 1202) regarding the treatment of steam; and
!Section 118 (99 Stat. 1319) of a continuing resolution for FY1986 (P.L.
99-190; December 19, 1985) authorized the President to deny “most-favored
nation” status to the products of Afghanistan.



With regard to the 1990s, the establishment of the discretionary spending limits
and the PAYGO process under the Budget Enforcement Act (BEA) of 1990 allows
such provisions to be identified in a more thorough fashion. Each year, the
Congressional Budget Office (CBO) prepares advisory sequester reports at the end
of a session that include information on all discretionary spending and PAYGO
legislation enacted; additionally, CBO provides an advisory cost estimate following
the enactment of each discretionary spending or PAYGO measure. The CBO reports
are provided to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), which has the
responsibility of determining whether a discretionary spending or PAYGO sequester
must occur.
Discretionary spending in annual appropriations acts is scored by both CBO and
OMB under the discretionary spending limits. Revenue and direct spending
generally is scored under the PAYGO “scorecard.” Special procedures come into
play when revenue or direct spending provisions are included in annual
appropriations acts. Pursuant to scorekeeping rule 3, any provision in an annual
appropriations act that makes a substantive change in direct spending effectively is
accounted for by both CBO and OMB under the discretionary spending limits. The5
two agencies follow different practices, however, regarding the treatment of revenue
provisions in annual appropriations acts: CBO scores their revenue effect under the
PAYGO scorecard, but OMB accounts for them under the discretionary spending
limits. All budgetary transactions in annual appropriations acts, therefore, are scored
by both CBO and OMB under the discretionary spending limits, except that CBO
scores revenue provisions in such acts under the PAYGO scorecard. Consequently,
any annual appropriations act listed under the PAYGO scorecard by CBO includes
revenue provisions.
The PAYGO process took effect beginning with FY1991 (during the second
session of the 101 Congress). During the period from FY1991-1999, CBO (andst
OMB) have tracked well over 400 separate measures under this process involving
revenues, direct spending, or both. As Table 1 shows, CBO identified in itsth
PAYGO reports six annual appropriations acts during this period (in the 104 and

105 Congresses) as including revenue provisions: (1) the Omnibus Consolidatedth


Rescissions and Appropriations Act, FY1996 (P.L. 104-134); (2) the VA-HUD
Appropriations Act, FY1997 (P.L. 104-204); (3) the Omnibus Consolidated
Appropriations Act, FY1997 (P.L. 104-208); (4) the Treasury-Postal Appropriations
Act, FY1998 (P.L. 105-61); (5) the VA-HUD Appropriations Act, FY1998 (P.L.
105-276); and (6) the Omnibus Consolidated and Emergency Supplemental
Appropriations Act, FY1999 (P.L. 105-277).


Special scorekeeping rules were set forth in the joint explanatory statement5
accompanying the BEA of 1990; the rules were revised in the joint explanatory statement
accompanying the BEA of 1997 (see “Scorekeeping Guidelines” on pages 1007-1014 of
H.Rept. 105-217, to accompany H.R. 2015, the Balanced Budget Act of 1997, July 30,

1997). The updated scorekeeping rules are available, as an appendix to OMB Circular A-11,


on the Internet at
[http://wwwwhitehouse.gov/WH/EOP/OMB/html/circulars/a011/app_a.pdf] .

Three of the four measures were regular appropriations acts; the other three were
omnibus appropriations acts. Two of the six measures involved revenue increases
(ranging from $25 million to $967 million over 5 years); the other four involved
revenue losses (ranging from $55 million to $516 million over 5 years).
In some cases, the net 5-year revenue impact of an act shown in Table 1 masks
considerable year-to-year fluctuations and largely offsetting increases and decreases
for a single year. For example, the 5-year revenue increase of $967 million for the
Omnibus Consolidated and Emergency Supplemental Appropriations Act for
FY1999 reflects a one-year increase of as much as $1,864 million (for FY2000) and
a one-year decrease of as much as $780 million (FY2002). Further, the net increase
of $1,864 million for FY2000 reflects increases of $1,618 million for
Medicare-related provisions and $1,155 million for revenue offsets, and decreases
of $1,089 million for extension of expiring tax provisions, among other things.
The revenue provisions included in these six acts dealt with such matters as:
!the adjustment of monetary penalties for inflation;
!the required use by federal agencies of electronic fund transfers;
!newborns’ and mothers’ health protection;
!parity in certain mental health benefits;
!bank insurance funds;
!a one-time open season so that federal employees in the Civil Service
Retirement System could choose to switch to the newer Federal Employees6
Retirement System;
!a change to the Freddie Mac charter involving default loss protection (which
subsequently was repealed);
!the extension of expiring tax provisions, including the research and
experimentation tax credit, the work opportunity tax credit, the
welfare-to-work tax credit, and the Generalized System of Preferences, among
others;
!a change in the tax treatment of prizes awarded as part of a contest, lottery, or
jackpot in order to offset changes in Medicare spending; and
!revenue offsets, such as adding vaccines against rotavirus gastroenteritis to the
list of taxable vaccines and restricting net operating loss carryback rules for
specified liability losses.


The CSRS/FERS open season provision was line-item vetoed by President Clinton,6
but this action was later nullified (and the President’s line-item veto authority was struck
down by the Supreme Court in June 1998).

Table Table 1. Annual Appropriations Acts Containing Revenue Provisions: FY1991-1999
Public5-YearAnnual Appropriations ActRevenue Provisions
Law Revenue Impact
P.L.Omnibus Consolidated Rescissions and+$25 millionAdjustment of civil monetary penalties for inflation;and required use of electronic fund transfers by

104-134Appropriations Act, FY1996(FY1996-2000)federal agencies.


P.L.-$516 millionVA-HUD Appropriations Act, FY1997in the application of certain limits to mental healthNewborns’ and mothers’ health protection; and parity

104-204 (FY1997-2001)benefits.


P.L.Omnibus Consolidated Appropriations-$55 millionBank insurance funds.
846104-208Act, FY1997(FY1997-2001)
P.L.Treasury-Postal Appropriations Act,Federal retirement program (CSRS/FERS) open-$151 million
iki/CRS-98-105-61 FY1998 season. (FY1998-2002)
g/wP.L.Change to Freddie Mac charter (default loss-$260 million a
s.or105-276protection) and drawdown of HUD funds.(FY1999-2003)VA-HUD Appropriations Act, FY1999a
leak
Extension of expiring tax provisions,b
://wikiP.L.Medicare-related provisions, revenue offsets, repeal+967 million Omnibus Consolidated and EmergencySupplemental Appropriations Act,
http105-277of change to Freddie Mac charter (default loss(FY1999-2003)FY1999
protection), and other provisions.
Source: The information presented in this table is based on PAYGO letters for each act prepared by the Congressional Budget Office
and CBO data included in final FY1997 and FY1998 sequester reports prepared by the Office of Management and Budget (see House
Document 105-30, February 4, 1997, and House Document 105-188, February 3, 1998, respectively).
The change to the Freddie Mac charter, which was estimated to decrease revenues by $215 million over five years, was repealeda
by P.L. 105-277.
The 5-year revenue impact reflects a $1,110 million increase in on-budget revenues and a $143 million decrease in off-budgetb
revenues; the latter involves a change to exempt student employees at state universities from Social Security coverage
agreements.