S. 4173 — Dollar-for-Dollar Deficit Reduction Act

This section inserts a new section 3101B in subchapter I of chapter 31, title 31, United States Code, to establish debt limit control procedures. (1) Declaration of a debt limit warning.—Requires the Secretary of the Treasury, upon determining a near breach of the public debt limit under section 3101 (i.e., the limit will be reached within 60 calendar days notwithstanding extraordinary measures), to issue a warning to the Senate Committee on Finance and the House Committee on Ways and Means specifying when extraordinary measures may be necessary to avert a breach. (Extraordinary measures are defined as actions to prolong U.S. Government functions absent a debt limit increase.) (2) Presidential submission of debt limit legislation.—Requires any formal presidential request to increase the debt limit to specify the amount and be accompanied by proposed legislation to reduce spending over the current fiscal year and the following 10 fiscal years by at least that amount (excluding net interest savings). Such spending reductions are to be calculated against a budget baseline consistent with section 257 of the Balanced Budget and Emergency Deficit Control Act of 1985 (2 U.S.C. 907)—which projects current-year levels of new budget authority, outlays, revenues, surpluses, or deficits into future years based on enacted laws, with specified assumptions for direct spending, receipts, and discretionary appropriations—excluding any extrapolation of spending enacted under an emergency designation.

This section establishes two points of order in the House and Senate against considering any bill, joint resolution, amendment, motion, or conference report that (1) increases the statutory debt limit, unless it contains net spending reductions equal to or greater than the increase over the current and next 10 fiscal years (excluding net interest savings, timing shifts of outlays or revenues beyond the window, and calculated by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) against a baseline consistent with section 257 of the Balanced Budget and Emergency Deficit Control Act of 1985 that excludes extrapolation of emergency-designated spending, with the CBO cost estimate publicly available for at least 24 hours before any vote); or (2) suspends the statutory debt limit, unless it contains net spending reductions (calculated identically) equal to or greater than the projected debt increase during the suspension period as determined by CBO (i.e., the difference between projected debt on the suspension's end date and the amount on its start date). In the Senate, either point of order may be waived or an appeal of the chair's ruling sustained only by an affirmative three-fifths vote of Members duly chosen and sworn. (As background, these points of order enforce spending restraint as a condition for debt limit adjustments, which cap federal borrowing to finance deficits.) The section also makes conforming amendments to the table of contents of the Congressional Budget and Impoundment Control Act of 1974.