SB4372 amends the statutory budget baseline (2 U.S.C. 907) to require baseline projections that are strictly grounded in current law and that assume continuation of current nominal levels of discretionary appropriations. The bill also directs that emergency and supplemental appropriations be excluded from the baseline and explicitly bars any inflation or other adjustments to baseline figures.
Practically, the change forces scorekeepers to treat future-year baseline spending as flat in nominal terms for discretionary programs and to rely only on the precise mechanics spelled out in statute for direct spending and receipts. That alters how cost increases and savings appear in budget documents, changes the reference point for appropriations and policy debates, and requires model and rule changes at CBO, OMB, and agencies that prepare budget estimates.
At a Glance
What It Does
The bill replaces parts of 2 U.S.C. 907 to define the baseline as a projection based on current laws with the assumption that current nominal discretionary appropriation levels continue into the future. It removes several earlier adjustment provisions, requires that laws creating direct spending and receipts operate as written, excludes emergency and supplemental funding from the baseline, and prohibits any inflation adjustment.
Who It Affects
CBO and OMB scorekeepers, congressional budget and appropriations committees, federal agencies that prepare budget estimates, and programs whose nominal funding has previously been treated as inflation‑adjusted in baseline projections. Analysts working on multi‑year cost estimates and program managers tracking purchasing power will also be directly affected.
Why It Matters
Baseline assumptions determine whether a proposal looks like an increase or simply a restoration of purchasing power; changing those assumptions shifts political and analytical framing of budget choices. The bill simplifies statutory guidance for scorekeeping but replaces one kind of assumption (inflation indexing and other adjustments) with a different, consequential default—flat nominal continuation for discretionary funds.
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What This Bill Actually Does
SB4372 focuses on the statutory definition of the federal budget baseline and on how scorekeepers should project future spending and receipts. The centerpiece is an amended 2 U.S.C. 907(a) that defines the baseline as a projection based on current law, paired with an explicit assumption that current nominal levels of discretionary appropriations continue into the budget year and outyears.
In short: unless the law says otherwise, discretionary accounts are treated as flat at current-year nominal amounts.
The bill also tightens how mandatory (direct) spending and receipts are handled. It requires that laws which create or provide direct spending and receipts be assumed to operate exactly as written for each year, removing language that previously allowed other assumptions or adjustments.
In addition, the amended subsection (c) directs scorekeepers to exclude emergency requirements and supplemental appropriations from baseline calculations and strips out prior paragraphs that authorized other kinds of baseline adjustments.The most consequential operational change is the new explicit ban on inflation adjustments: subsection (c)(3) provides that "No adjustment shall be made for inflation or for any other factor." That means baseline projections will not automatically increase to reflect price-level changes or similar indexing unless a law explicitly requires such an adjustment. Finally, the bill makes conforming edits to the Congressional Budget Act (2 U.S.C. 602(e)(1)) and the Social Security Act (42 U.S.C. 603(a)(3)) to align cross‑references with the revised baseline rules.Taken together, these edits change the reference point used to score legislation and to present budget documents.
Scorekeepers, modelers, and agencies will need to adapt their forecasting practices to a baseline that is intentionally nominal‑flat for discretionaries and strictly loyal to the written terms of statutes for mandatory programs. The change alters how nominal increases are presented in budget tables and how policymakers and the public interpret proposals relative to the baseline.
The Five Things You Need to Know
The bill amends 2 U.S.C. 907(a) to define the baseline as a projection based on current law and the assumption that current nominal levels of discretionary appropriations continue into future years.
It requires that laws creating direct spending and receipts be assumed to operate exactly as specified for each year (amending subsection (b)).
Subsection (c) is revised to instruct scorekeepers to exclude emergency requirements and supplemental appropriations from the baseline.
The bill adds an explicit prohibition: "No adjustment shall be made for inflation or for any other factor" when calculating the baseline.
It makes conforming changes to the Congressional Budget Act (2 U.S.C. 602(e)(1)) and to the Social Security Act (42 U.S.C. 603(a)(3)) to align statutory references with the new baseline language.
Section-by-Section Breakdown
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Short title — "No Bias in the Baseline Act"
Provides the act's short title. This is nominally administrative but signals the bill's intent to change baseline conventions; it does not affect substantive budget mechanics.
Baseline defined as current‑law projection with flat discretionary assumption
Replaces the prior general baseline language with a clear rule: the baseline is a projection of current‑year levels of new budget authority, outlays, revenues, and the surplus/deficit based on current laws and the assumption that current nominal discretionary appropriation levels continue. Practically, this directs scorekeepers to treat future-year discretionary accounts as carrying forward the same dollar amounts unless a statute changes them, rather than allowing routine assumed uplifts.
Direct spending and receipts operate as written
Reworks subsection (b) to state categorically that laws providing or creating direct spending and receipts are assumed to operate in the manner specified in those laws for each year. The provision removes a previously enumerated paragraph, narrowing room for interpretive adjustments and reinforcing a text‑faithful approach to mandatory program projections.
Exclude emergency/supplemental funding; ban inflation or other adjustments
Alters subsection (c) to exclude resources designated as emergency requirements and any supplemental appropriations from the baseline. It deletes multiple prior paragraphs that authorized adjustments and replaces them with a provision that explicitly bars any adjustment for inflation or any other factor. This is the operational pivot: baseline tables will no longer reflect routine inflation indexing or other upward adjustments unless law explicitly provides them.
Conforming edits to budget and Social Security statutes
Makes two technical but consequential conforming amendments: (1) revises 2 U.S.C. 602(e)(1) (the Congressional Budget Act) by altering punctuation and removing a clause tied to 1985 language, and (2) amends 42 U.S.C. 603(a)(3) by removing one subparagraph and redesignating another. These edits realign cross‑referenced text so other scorekeeping authorities and statutory cross‑citations remain coherent with the changed baseline definition.
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Every bill creates winners and losers. Here's who stands to gain and who bears the cost.
Who Benefits
- Congressional scorekeepers and some appropriations staff: the statute forces a single, simpler default—flat nominal continuation for discretionary accounts—reducing interpretive discretion and making the reference point clearer for drafting and markup.
- Policymakers advocating for lower statutory baseline growth (fiscal conservatives or those pushing nominal restraint): by eliminating automatic inflation or other adjustments, the baseline will show lower nominal future-year spending absent explicit statutory increases, which strengthens arguments that future increases require affirmative action.
- Budget modelers who prefer text‑based fidelity: entities seeking a baseline rule that ties projections strictly to statutory language (rather than heuristics or indexation assumptions) gain a clear statutory mandate, simplifying certain legal questions about what to assume.
Who Bears the Cost
- Federal agencies and program managers: without inflation adjustments in the baseline, maintaining purchasing power requires explicit increases in appropriations—agencies will face de facto real declines unless Congress acts, and they must adjust planning and performance metrics.
- The Congressional Budget Office and OMB: both must revise forecasting models, scoring procedures, and documentation to remove inflation and other adjustments and to implement the new 'operate as written' prescriptions for mandatory programs, imposing transition costs and model‑validation work.
- Policy analysts and long‑term budget watchers: the new baseline will change historical comparators and trend lines, complicating year‑to‑year comparisons and requiring recalibration of dashboards, indices, and analytic narratives used by committees, think tanks, and the public.
Key Issues
The Core Tension
The central dilemma is between statutory clarity and economic realism: the bill forces a straightforward, text‑faithful baseline that avoids discretionary scorekeeping adjustments, but by outlawing inflation and other adjustments it risks presenting a legally tidy baseline that understates the real cost of maintaining current policies—turning routine inflationary maintenance into politically framed policy choices.
The bill trades one kind of baseline discretion for another. By removing inflation adjustments and several prior adjustment clauses, it creates a mechanically simple rule (nominal flat continuation for discretionary funds and strict fidelity to statutory language for direct spending) but at the cost of divorcing the baseline from the likely economic reality of rising prices.
That choice makes it easier to claim that any nominal increase is a policy change rather than an inflation restoration, which will affect debate framing and cost‑benefit calculations.
Implementation raises concrete modeling and legal questions. CBO and OMB will need to update long‑range models and public tables; one‑time edits may be straightforward, but interactions with statutes that already contain explicit indexing provisions (for example, tax code indexing or benefit COLAs written into law) will require careful work to avoid double‑counting or omission.
The bill's deletion of several prior paragraphs in 2 U.S.C. 907 also narrows interpretive space; in edge cases that may produce litigation or intra‑branch disputes over whether a particular adjustment is permissible under the new text.
Finally, the bill's impact depends heavily on context: excluding emergency and supplemental funding prevents one class of upward adjustments from inflating baselines, but the prohibition on "any other factor" raises questions about treatment of programmatic phase‑outs, discretionary caps enforcement mechanisms, or statutory triggers that previously relied on baseline growth assumptions. Those unresolved interactions will matter for high‑profile entitlement reforms, multi‑year appropriations, and any statutory indexing embedded elsewhere in the U.S. Code.
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