150 International Affairs:Reform Food Aid Programs

Sources

Savings based on adding together the cost of the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) as found on page 44 of the “FY 2015 Congressional Budget Justification: Department of State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs,” and the savings from the Royce-Bass Food Aid Reform Act as described by committee staff, equaling $500 million over 10 years: House Foreign Affairs Committee, “Royce–Bass Food Aid Reform Act: Section-by-Section,” undated. The FAO’s estimated FY 2014 cost of $116 million is increased, according to the CBO’s most recent August 2014 baseline for discretionary spending. The $500 million in 10-year savings from the Royce–Bass Food Aid Reform Act is spread equally across the 10 years, as $50 million per year.

Technical Notes on Scoring

CBO Baseline

Unless otherwise noted, calculations for savings for each recommendation relies on the most recent Congressional Budget Office baseline, as found in “An Update to the Budget and Economic Outlook: 2014 to 2024,” published August 27, 2014, has been used.

Savings “Totals”

While totals for the five and 10 year savings are provided by section and for the complete set of recommendations, there are two reasons they should not be viewed as representing total savings for The Budget Book.

First, as noted in the introduction, The Heritage Foundation would recommend that the savings realized in the Function 050 Defense section would stay within the Department of Defense to strengthen the nation’s defense capabilities.

Second, the numbers cannot be deemed to represent the realized savings if every single recommendation were adopted because policy changes made in one program can impact spending levels in other programs.  Thus, the numbers in the table do not reflect any potential interactions between the various policy changes affecting spending or savings.