Summary
Many observers believed that the sequestration provisions of the Budget Control Act (BCA) were so unpopular that Congress would replace it with an alternative that included more significant savings from mandatory programs and changes to tax policy. That has proven impossible thus far, and so the BCA currently governs the annual appropriations process. However, neither chamber of Congress has adhered to its provisions in its FY 2014 budget actions. Specifically, both the president and the Senate assume that sequestration is replaced, while the House retains sequestration but violates the specified caps for defense and nondefense spending in order to provide additional defense spending.