FY22 Deeming Resolution: A Procedural Step Toward Implementing a Visionary Budget

Jun 14, 2021

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Thanks to the American Rescue Plan championed by Congressional Democrats and the Biden Administration earlier this year, the nation is on its way to a strong recovery from the deep crises brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic. But we are not yet where we need to be. That is why President Biden has proposed a transformative budget for 2022 - a visionary plan with critical investments in job creation, clean energy, infrastructure, education, child care, and more - to build a better, more secure future for American families, communities, and the economy.

The budget takes a comprehensive approach to these goals: through significant 2022 funding boosts for key programs and agencies funded by annual appropriations, as well as through the longer-term resource blueprints of the American Jobs Plan and the American Families Plan. Given where we are in the calendar, the House needs to move forward with appropriations before the budget resolution is complete. Under this unusual, compressed schedule, the deeming resolution (H. Res. 467) is a simple procedural measure that allows the Appropriations Committee to get started while the Budget Committee develops the full range of spending and revenue policies for the budget resolution.

• The deeming resolution, or 'deemer,' supports President Biden's $1.5 trillion discretionary topline for FY22.[1] Overall, this amounts to a 9 percent increase, restoring critical public services and benefits after almost a decade of austerity and uncertainty due to the Budget Control Act caps.
• The funding level in the deeming resolution provides a single discretionary total to the Appropriations Committee, which will decide how to divide that topline among the various appropriations bills - both defense and domestic.
• Without a deeming resolution, the Appropriations Committee would lack adjustment authorities to provide additional resources for unanticipated needs and other necessary spending outside of ordinary agency appropriations. The deemer includes all the adjustment authorities in the President's budget, such as an adjustment for spending designated as disaster relief.
• Providing a discretionary topline is a core responsibility of the Budget Committee in the appropriations process. The deeming resolution allows the Budget and the Rules Committees to assess appropriations bills and amendments for budget compliance.
• Now that this housekeeping measure is out of the way, Congress can focus on developing a budget resolution framework to ensure the American Jobs Plan and the American Families Plan can become law - with or without Republican support.

[1] The deeming resolution incorporates certain scorekeeping and technical adjustments necessary to translate the President's topline number into a 302(a) allocation for purposes of enforcing the Congressional Budget Act.