2 USC 661c – Budgetary treatment
(a) President’s budget
Beginning with fiscal year 1992, the President’s budget shall reflect the costs of direct loan and loan guarantee programs. The budget shall also include the planned level of new direct loan obligations or loan guarantee commitments associated with each appropriations request.
(b) Appropriations required
Terms Used In 2 USC 661c
- Appropriation: The provision of funds, through an annual appropriations act or a permanent law, for federal agencies to make payments out of the Treasury for specified purposes. The formal federal spending process consists of two sequential steps: authorization
- Budget authority: Authority provided by law to enter into obligations that will result in outlays of Federal funds. Budget authority may be classified by the period of availability (one-year, multiyear, no-year), by the timing of congressional action (current or permanent), or by the manner of determining the amount available (definite or indefinite).
- Corporation: A legal entity owned by the holders of shares of stock that have been issued, and that can own, receive, and transfer property, and carry on business in its own name.
- Entitlement: A Federal program or provision of law that requires payments to any person or unit of government that meets the eligibility criteria established by law. Entitlements constitute a binding obligation on the part of the Federal Government, and eligible recipients have legal recourse if the obligation is not fulfilled. Social Security and veterans' compensation and pensions are examples of entitlement programs.
- Fiscal year: The fiscal year is the accounting period for the government. For the federal government, this begins on October 1 and ends on September 30. The fiscal year is designated by the calendar year in which it ends; for example, fiscal year 2006 begins on October 1, 2005 and ends on September 30, 2006.
- Obligation: An order placed, contract awarded, service received, or similar transaction during a given period that will require payments during the same or a future period.
- Outlays: Outlays are payments made (generally through the issuance of checks or disbursement of cash) to liquidate obligations. Outlays during a fiscal year may be for payment of obligations incurred in prior years or in the same year.
Notwithstanding any other provision of law, new direct loan obligations may be incurred and new loan guarantee commitments may be made for fiscal year 1992 and thereafter only to the extent that—
(1) new budget authority to cover their costs is provided in advance in an appropriations Act;
(2) a limitation on the use of funds otherwise available for the cost of a direct loan or loan guarantee program has been provided in advance in an appropriations Act; or
(3) authority is otherwise provided in appropriation Acts.
(c) Exemption for mandatory programs
Subsections (b) and (e) shall not apply to a direct loan or loan guarantee program that—
(1) constitutes an entitlement (such as the guaranteed student loan program or the veterans’ home loan guaranty program); or
(2) all existing credit programs of the Commodity Credit Corporation on November 5, 1990.
(d) Budget accounting
(1) The authority to incur new direct loan obligations, make new loan guarantee commitments, or modify outstanding direct loans (or direct loan obligations) or loan guarantees (or loan guarantee commitments) shall constitute new budget authority in an amount equal to the cost of the direct loan or loan guarantee in the fiscal year in which definite authority becomes available or indefinite authority is used. Such budget authority shall constitute an obligation of the credit program account to pay to the financing account.
(2) The outlays resulting from new budget authority for the cost of direct loans or loan guarantees described in paragraph (1) shall be paid from the credit program account into the financing account and recorded in the fiscal year in which the direct loan or the guaranteed loan is disbursed or its costs altered.
(3) All collections and payments of the financing accounts shall be a means of financing.
(e) Modifications
An outstanding direct loan (or direct loan obligation) or loan guarantee (or loan guarantee commitment) shall not be modified in a manner that increases its costs unless budget authority for the additional cost has been provided in advance in an appropriations Act.
(f) Reestimates
When the estimated cost for a group of direct loans or loan guarantees for a given credit program made in a single fiscal year is reestimated in a subsequent year, the difference between the reestimated cost and the previous cost estimate shall be displayed as a distinct and separately identified subaccount in the credit program account as a change in program costs and a change in net interest. There is hereby provided permanent indefinite authority for these reestimates.
(g) Administrative expenses
All funding for an agency’s administration of a direct loan or loan guarantee program shall be displayed as distinct and separately identified subaccounts within the same budget account as the program’s cost.