Two follow ups on the nice Pew chart of many federal laws that expire at year-end.
First, commenter rjs reminds us that “the whole [darn] [continuing resolution] expires Friday.” In short, almost all discretionary agencies of the federal government run out of money at the end of the week. The one exception? Agriculture, whose 2012 appropriations managed to get enacted as part of the last continuing resolution. (Track the status of appropriations bill here.) Another CR will, I presume, pass later this week.
Second, reader JP points us to a new report by the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget about the expiring provisions. They found a few more (e.g., some additional Medicare ones) and then toted up the costs for one-year extensions and ten-year extensions (except for the payroll tax cut and extended unemployment benefits):
The presentation in this figure is rather strange, but after a little effort I figured out what they were trying to do.
At first glance, one might be tempted to conclude that, for example, the extension of “Subpart F For Active Financing Income” would actually *raise* $70 billion of revenue rather than be a revenue cost. It appears the list of indented and italicized items is an attempt to summarize the “Tax Extenders” even though the total tax extenders is $360 and the itemization is $355 (and even though the right hand column does not foot if one literally adds all the numbers, positive and negative) but, at the end of the day, I get it.