On the recordMay 13, 1998
The reason why the amendment is necessary is because the Congressional Budget Office determined that any new Federal mandates in the area of entitlement programs are not subject to the Unfunded Mandates Reform Act's point of order procedure if there is sufficient flexibility in the affected entitlement program to offset the new State and local costs. The best example of this is on June 10th, 1996, when CBO ruled that a point of order would not exist for a proposed cap on Federal Medicaid expenditures and any other mandatory Federal aid programs except food stamps. The effect of this interpretation is to exempt more than two-thirds of all granted aid. In other words, all the mandatory entitlement programs from coverage under the Unfunded Mandates Reform Act.
Source
govinfo.gov
