They had also put in place caps on so-called discretionary federal spending--that is, the portion of federal spending that is allocated annually--and had required that legislative changes to taxes or entitlement spending be deficit neutral, a requirement called the PAYGO rule.
The PAYGO rule mandated that changes in taxes or entitlement spending be offset by other changes in taxes or entitlement spending so that the deficit was not increased. Despite the enactment of deficit-reducing legislation and the existence of these budget rules, the best estimates ten years ago had the federal budget still running deficits far into the future.