Politics

White House Report Claims Sequestration Will Affect Federal Department That No Longer Exists

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Large image on homepages | Courtesy of the White House
(Courtesy of the White House)

If you want a thorough agency-by-agency rundown of the budget cuts sequestration would deliver, the Office of Management and Budget has you covered. In compliance with The Sequestration Transparency Act of 2012, the OMB sent a detailed report to Congress in September 2012. But there's a small problem with the report: One of the cuts it warns against would affect an agency that no longer exists–and didn't exist when the OMB sent its report to congress. 

The first line item on page 121 of the OMB's September 2012 report says that under sequestration the National Drug Intelligence Center would lose $2 million of its $20 million budget. While that's slightly more than 8.2 percent (rounding error or scare tactic?), the bigger problem is that the National Drug Intelligence Center shuttered its doors on June 15, 2012–three months before the OMB issued its report to Congress. 

Here's a screenshot of the OMB's report: 

Here's a screenshot of the DOJ website's announcement that the NDIC had closed: 

Might there be other errors in the OMB's report?

UPDATE: Several people have pointed out that the NDIC's responsiblities and budget were absorbed by the DEA. This is only partially true, as the NDIC's pre-closure budget was $20 million, and the DEA requested only $8 million to absorb some of the department's employees. But the real issue is still the same: The OMB report lists the NDIC as its own division under "Department of Justice, General Administration," which is false. The center no longer exists, even if some of its responsiblities are being done by the DEA.