§661c Budgetary Treatment

Summary

Starting with fiscal year 1992, the President’s budget must show the cost of direct loans and loan guarantees and list the planned new loan obligations or guarantee commitments tied to each spending request. New direct loan obligations or new loan guarantee commitments for 1992 and later can only be made if Congress provides the needed budget authority in an appropriations law, puts a limit on funds for those costs in an appropriations law, or otherwise authorizes them in appropriations laws. That rule does not apply to entitlement loan programs (for example, the guaranteed student loan and veterans’ home loan guaranty programs) or to the Commodity Credit Corporation’s credit programs as they existed on November 5, 1990. When authority is given to make, change, or use loans or guarantees, that authority creates new budget authority equal to the loan’s cost in the year it becomes available or is used. The credit program account must transfer those amounts to a financing account, and payments are recorded when loans are disbursed or their costs change. Any change that raises costs needs advance budget authority from Congress. Reestimates of a year’s loan costs must be shown as a separate subaccount and have permanent indefinite authority. Agency administrative funding must appear in separate subaccounts inside the same budget account as the program costs.