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___________________________________________________________________________
REGISTER YOUR COPY OF THE CONGRESSIONAL BUDGET TRACKING SYSTEM, SEND IN THE
FOLLOWING DOCUMENT RIGHT AWAY.
CBTS Release 4, December 30, 1992
_____________________________________________________________________
Name
_____________________________________________________________________
Address 1
_____________________________________________________________________
Address 2
_____________________________________________________________________
City, State Zip
_____________________________________________________________________
Voice Telephone
____________________________________________________________________
FAX Telephone
Mail the above to:
National Taxpayers Union Foundation
404 Eighth Street N.E.
Washington, D.C. 20002
Voice Telephone: (202) 543-1303
FAX Telephone: (202) 543-2024
This is the Winter '92 release of CBTS. This release covers bills introduced
through the end of the 102nd Congress. Registering this release will make
future CBTS releases available for the upgrade fee, which is currently $15
(subject to change without notice.)
CONGRESSIONAL BUDGET TRACKING SYSTEM RULES
The Congressional Budget Tracking System (CBTS) is a
comprehensive computerized data base summarizing cost estimates
of legislation proposing significant changes in current Federal
spending policies. CBTS cross-indexes these estimates with the
sponsorship and cosponsorship records of each member of Congress
to provide a running tally of the cost of every major spending
initiative that each member has sponsored or cosponsored. CBTS
contains an offset feature to ensure that the same spending is
not counted twice when it appears in more than one bill. This
permits the system to show only the net spending proposed by each
member.
CBTS follows a strict set of guidelines that determine bill inclusion, estimate options,
annualization procedures and offsets. These rules have been developed with input from our
CBTS advisory board, which consists of members from both political parties in both houses
of Congress. Extreme care has been taken to ensure that procedures accurately and fairly
reflect the budget process.
Cost estimates are obtained from many sources and annualized to reflect the fiscal
impact of proposed legislation.
I. CBTS Data Base
The report seeks to include all bills having an annualized impact on federal spending of plus
or minus at least $10 million.
Excluded are:
A. Major, multiple program reauthorization legislation and Appropriations bills.
In future reports, we hope to account for the proposed increase over the prior
year or a spending baseline for such bills.
B. Resolutions, joint resolutions and concurrent resolutions.
C. Bills having only tax and regulatory effects.
D. Bills introduced by request of the President, on which there are no co-
sponsors. If the bill is co-sponsored, the original sponsor may request to have
the bill deleted from his/her total if the sponsor notifies NTUF that he/she
does not support the bill.
E. "Soft target," or non-specific, spending cuts that do not have self-executing
enforcement mechanisms.
F. Budget process reform bills that could restrain spending, such as the Balanced
Budget Amendment or the line item veto. Potential budget savings from these
reforms are not quantifiable. Budget process reforms are noted on the
member's report with no estimate of costs or savings.
II. Annualization of Costs
Depending upon the availability and completeness of estimates, the following annualization
procedures apply:
A. If only a first year estimate of cost is available, the annualized estimate is first
year estimate. Typically these estimates come from sponsors. When only a
first year estimate is available, it is the amount shown in the annualized cost
column. In many cases this will understate the true average annualized cost of
the legislation, due to escalating costs of a given bill in later years.
B. If a multiple year estimate is available, the annualized estimate is the average
of the years during which the spending is estimated to increase. This method
helps to better account for legislation with rising multi-year costs.
C. If only a total five-year spending estimate is available, the annualized estimate
is that estimate divided by five.
D. Cost estimates reflect only the federal spending increases or decreases
compared to spending authorized by current law. We do not record costs by
taxes or other mandatory payments proposed by a bill because CBTS measures
spending changes.
III. Selection of a Cost Estimate
A. When competing cost estimates are available, CBTS will use the highest, most
credible estimate. Estimates are ranked on credibility on the following basis:
1. Estimates by the Congressional Budget Office, the Office of
Management and Budget, the General Accounting Office or a
government agency or an estimate from a government commissioned
private research study or an authorized dollar amount of spending
contained in the text of the legislation.
2. Estimates by a non-partisan research "think tank" organization or an
interest group following the legislation. Before an interest group
estimate is used, a careful examination of the methodology is
undertaken. An interest group or research organization estimate is
provided to the sponsor of the legislation and the sponsor is encouraged
to review the estimate. If the interest group estimate is significantly
flawed, the sponsor's estimate will be used.
3. Sponsor.
B. If no estimates are available from sources outside the National Taxpayers
Union Foundation, our research staff will in some cases develop a cost
estimate based on very conservative assumptions.
End of Info file
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