The UO joined other higher education organizations in signing onto the Non-Defense Discretionary (NDD) United letter regarding sequestration. NDD United is a coalition of groups interested in protecting non-defense discretionary programs from budget cuts. The temporary relief from sequestration included in the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2013 expires at the end of FY15. The letter urges lawmakers to avoid sequestration from returning in FY16 and emphasizes the importance of NDD programs.

According to CQ’s Budget Tracker, the president’s budget will offer a plan for ending sequesters, offsetting an estimated $91 billion in discretionary spending cuts in FY2016.  Under the Budget Control Act, between 2016 through FY 2021, the sequester cuts spending by $109.333 billion, equally divided between defense and nondefense. Some of those cuts do occur to non-exempt mandatory spending, but most comes from discretionary spending, totaling the $91 billion the president’s budget is expected to offset.

President Obama is expected to release his budget on February 2.