Stop the Baseline Bloat Act: How Removing Emergency Funds from Budget Math Could Trigger Automatic Cuts

The aptly named Stop the Baseline Bloat Act of 2025 is here to change how the federal government does its budget math, and it’s a big deal for anyone who cares about how money gets allocated during a crisis. This bill targets the “baseline” calculation used under the Balanced Budget and Emergency Deficit Control Act of 1985—that’s the law that sets the spending caps and triggers automatic cuts (sequestration) if the caps are breached.

The New Budget Math: Excluding the Emergency Fund

Section 2 is where the action is. When budget analysts calculate the baseline spending level for the current year, this bill mandates that they must exclude any money previously labeled as an “emergency requirement” or provided through supplemental appropriation laws. Think of the baseline as the starting line for future budgets. Historically, if Congress spent $50 billion on regular programs, and then an extra $10 billion on disaster relief (an emergency requirement), the next year’s baseline might start at $60 billion. This bill says, "Nope. That disaster relief money doesn't count toward the baseline." The new baseline would start at $50 billion.

Why This Matters for Your Wallet and Safety Net

On the surface, the goal is clear: prevent temporary, one-time spending—like relief funding after a major hurricane or a pandemic response—from permanently inflating the government’s expected spending level. Proponents would argue this enforces stricter fiscal discipline by ensuring that only regular, ongoing programs contribute to the spending cap calculation. For the taxpayer who wants smaller government, this sounds like a win.

However, this change creates a significant risk for anyone who relies on government services, especially when things go sideways. By artificially lowering the baseline, the bill tightens future spending caps. If the baseline is too low, it increases the chance that regular, non-emergency appropriations will be deemed excessive, potentially triggering sequestration—those automatic, across-the-board spending cuts. Imagine a situation where a massive wildfire requires $20 billion in supplemental funding one year. Because that $20 billion is excluded from the baseline, the spending cap for the following year is much lower. If that lower cap is breached, critical programs—like veterans’ healthcare, food safety inspections, or air traffic control—could face mandatory cuts, even if they had nothing to do with the original emergency.

The Real-World Impact on Agencies and Communities

This move could make future budget negotiations incredibly tense for agencies that often rely on a mix of regular and supplemental funding. For example, FEMA’s budget, which handles disaster response, might not be directly cut, but the pressure to keep overall spending within the newly constrained caps could force cuts on other essential services within the Department of Homeland Security. For a community hit by a flood, this change might not directly affect the immediate relief, but it could indirectly hamstring the long-term resilience and readiness of the federal agencies designed to help them.

In essence, the Stop the Baseline Bloat Act is a double-edged sword. While it aims to cut the fat from the budget process by removing temporary spending from the math, the cost could be a budget system so rigid that it forces cuts to necessary, ongoing programs simply because it can’t account for the real costs of running a government that occasionally faces emergencies.