Erratum

Last week's Analysis and Commentary contained an error. We apologize for this.

The piece entitled "Relative — as Opposed to Absolute — Levels of FDA Funding" states that the defense and non-defense budget functions would share a common spending ceiling starting in FY 14. This is not the case. Because the supercommittee failed to eliminate the sequester, there is a firewall  between defense and non-defense spendng, each having their own caps through 2021. Had the supercommittee succeeded, security and non-security would have been under one overall cap starting next year as described in the article. One person who pointed out the need for a correction also added: “Of course this is not to say the defense lobby won’t try and undo the firewall — that is a real fear — but for now at least non-defense discretionary spending will still have its own cap.”