|
Discretionary Spending
In United States, American public finance, discretionary spending is government spending implemented through an Appropriations bill (United States), appropriations bill. This spending is an optional part of fiscal policy, in contrast to social programs for which funding is mandatory and determined by the number of eligible recipients. Some examples of areas funded by discretionary spending are National security, national defense, Aid, foreign aid, education and transportation. United States discretionary spending In the United States, discretionary spending refers to optional spending set by appropriation levels each year, at the discretion of Congress. During the budget process, Congress issues a budget resolution which includes levels of discretionary spending, Deficit spending, deficit projections, and instructions for changing entitlement programs and tax policy. After setting discretionary spending levels, both the United States House Committee on Appropriations, House A ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
United States
The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 contiguous states border Canada to the north and Mexico to the south, with the semi-exclave of Alaska in the northwest and the archipelago of Hawaii in the Pacific Ocean. The United States asserts sovereignty over five Territories of the United States, major island territories and United States Minor Outlying Islands, various uninhabited islands in Oceania and the Caribbean. It is a megadiverse country, with the world's List of countries and dependencies by area, third-largest land area and List of countries and dependencies by population, third-largest population, exceeding 340 million. Its three Metropolitan statistical areas by population, largest metropolitan areas are New York metropolitan area, New York, Greater Los Angeles, Los Angel ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Budget Resolution
The United States budget process is the framework used by Congress and the President of the United States to formulate and create the United States federal budget. The process was established by the Budget and Accounting Act of 1921, the Congressional Budget and Impoundment Control Act of 1974, and additional budget legislation. Prior to 1974, Congress had no formal process for establishing a federal budget. When President Richard Nixon began to refuse to spend funds that Congress had allocated, they adopted a more formal means by which to challenge him. The Congressional Budget Act of 1974 created the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), which gained more control of the budget, limiting the power of the President's Office of Management and Budget (OMB). The Act passed easily while the administration was embroiled in the Watergate scandal and was unwilling to provoke Congress. Discretionary spending Discretionary spending requires an annual appropriation bill, which is a pi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Health Care
Health care, or healthcare, is the improvement or maintenance of health via the preventive healthcare, prevention, diagnosis, therapy, treatment, wikt:amelioration, amelioration or cure of disease, illness, injury, and other disability, physical and mental impairments in people. Health care is delivered by health professionals and allied health professions, allied health fields. Medicine, dentistry, pharmacy, midwifery, nursing, optometry, audiology, psychology, occupational therapy, physical therapy, athletic training, and other health professions all constitute health care. The term includes work done in providing primary care, wikt:secondary care, secondary care, tertiary care, and public health. Access to health care may vary across countries, communities, and individuals, influenced by social and economic conditions and health policy, health policies. Providing health care services means "the timely use of personal health services to achieve the best possible health outcom ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Social Security (United States)
In the United States, Social Security is the commonly used term for the federal Old-Age, Survivors, and Disability Insurance (OASDI) program and is administered by the Social Security Administration (SSA). The Social Security Act was passed in 1935,Social Security Act of 1935 and the existing version of the Act, as amended, 2 USC 7 encompasses several social welfare and social insurance programs. The average monthly Social Security benefit for May 2025 was $1,903. This was raised from $1,783 in 2024. The total cost of the Social Security program for 2022 was $1.244 trillion or about 5.2 percent of U.S. gross domestic product (GDP). In 2025 there have been proposed budget cuts to social security. Social Security is funded primarily through payroll taxes called the Federal Insurance Contributions Act (FICA) or Self Employed Contributions Act (SECA). Wage and salary earnings from covered employment, up to an amount determined by law (see tax rate table), are subject to th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Congressional Research Service
The Congressional Research Service (CRS) is a public policy research institute of the United States Congress. Operating within the Library of Congress, it works primarily and directly for members of Congress and their committees and staff on a confidential, nonpartisan basis. CRS is sometimes known as Congress' think tank due to its broad mandate of providing research and analysis on all matters relevant to national policymaking. CRS has roughly 600 employees, who have a wide variety of expertise and disciplines, including lawyers, economists, historians, political scientists, reference librarians, and scientists. In the 2023 fiscal year, it was appropriated a budget of roughly $133.6 million by Congress. Modeled after the Wisconsin Legislative Reference Bureau, CRS was founded during the height of the Progressive Era as part of a broader effort to professionalize the government by providing independent research and information to public officials. Its work was initially ma ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mandatory Spending
The United States federal budget is divided into three categories: mandatory spending, discretionary spending, and interest on debt. Also known as entitlement spending, in US fiscal policy, mandatory spending is government spending on certain programs that are required by law. United States Congress, Congress established mandatory programs under authorization laws. Congress legislates spending for mandatory programs outside of the annual Appropriations bill (United States), appropriations bill process. Congress can only reduce the funding for programs by changing the authorization law itself. This normally requires a 60-vote majority in the United States Senate, Senate to pass. Discretionary spending on the other hand will not occur unless Congress acts each year to provide the funding through an appropriations bill. Expenditure is often influenced by Federal Reserve advisory. Mandatory spending has taken up a larger share of the federal budget over time. In fiscal year (FY) 196 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
United States Congressional Conference Committee
A conference committee is a joint committee of the United States Congress appointed by the House of Representatives House of Representatives is the name of legislative bodies in many countries and sub-national entities. In many countries, the House of Representatives is the lower house of a bicameral legislature, with the corresponding upper house often ... and Senate to resolve disagreements on a particular bill. A conference committee is usually composed of senior members of the standing committees of each house that originally considered the legislation. The use of the conference committee process has steadily declined in recent decades. Sixty-seven conference reports were produced as recently as the 104th Congress (1995–97), falling to zero in the 117th Congress (2021-2023) and just one in the 118th Congress (2023-2025). Going to conference Conference committees operate after the House and the Senate have passed different versions of a bill. Conference comm ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
United States Senate Committee On Appropriations
The United States Senate Committee on Appropriations is a Standing committee (United States Congress), standing committee of the United States Senate. It has jurisdiction over all discretionary spending legislation in the Senate. The Senate Appropriations Committee is the largest committee in the U.S. Senate, with 30 members in the 117th United States Congress, 117th Congress. Its role is defined by the U.S. Constitution, which requires "appropriations made by law" prior to the expenditure of any money from the Treasury, and the committee is therefore one of the most powerful committees in the Senate. The committee was first organized on March 6, 1867, when power over appropriations was taken out of the hands of the U.S. Senate Committee on Finance, Finance Committee. The chairman of the Appropriations Committee has enormous power to bring home special projects (sometimes referred to as "Pork barrel, pork barrel spending") for their state as well as having the final say on other ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
United States House Committee On Appropriations
The United States House Committee on Appropriations is a committee of the United States House of Representatives that is responsible for passing appropriation bills along with its Senate counterpart. The bills passed by the Appropriations Committee regulate expenditures of money by the government of the United States. As such, it is one of the most powerful committees, and its members are seen as influential. History The constitutional basis for the Appropriations Committee comes from Article one, Section nine, Clause seven of the U.S. Constitution, which says: :No money shall be drawn from the treasury, but in consequence of appropriations made by law; and a regular statement and account of receipts and expenditures of all public money shall be published from time to time. This clearly delegated the power of appropriating money to Congress, but was vague beyond that. Originally, the power of appropriating was taken by the Committee on Ways and Means, but the United St ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Entitlement Programs
An entitlement is a government program guaranteeing access to some benefit by members of a specific group and based on established rights or by legislation. A "right" is itself an entitlement associated with a moral or social principle, while an "entitlement" is a provision made in accordance with a legal framework of a society. In law, an entitlement is a provision made in accordance with a legal framework of a society. Typically, entitlements are based on concepts of principle ("rights") which are themselves based in concepts of social equality or enfranchisement. It is the content of a subjective right, namely the claim of a legal subject as against other persons to a legal object. United States government programs In the United States, an entitlement program is a type of "government program that provides individuals with personal financial benefits (or sometimes special government-provided goods or services) to which an indefinite (but usually rather large) number of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Deficit Spending
Within the budgetary process, deficit spending is the amount by which spending exceeds revenue over a particular period of time, also called simply deficit, or budget deficit, the opposite of budget surplus. The term may be applied to the budget of a government, private company, or individual. A central point of controversy in economics, government deficit spending was first identified as a necessary economic tool by John Maynard Keynes in the wake of the Great Depression. Controversy Government deficit spending is a central point of controversy in economics, with prominent economists holding differing views. The mainstream economics position is that deficit spending is desirable and necessary as part of countercyclical fiscal policy, but that there should not be a structural deficit (i.e., permanent deficit): The government should run deficits during recessions to compensate for the shortfall in aggregate demand, but should run surpluses in boom times so that there is no ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Budget Process
A budget process refers to the process by which governments create and approve a budget, which is as follows: * The Financial Service Department prepares worksheets to assist the department head in preparation of department budget estimates * The Administrator calls a meeting of managers and they present and discuss plans for the following year’s projected level of activity. * The managers can work with the Financial Services, or work alone to prepare an estimate for the departments coming year. * The completed budgets are presented by the managers to their Executive Officers for review and approval. * Justification of the budget request may be required in writing. In most cases, the manager talks with their administrative officers about budget requirements. Adjustments to the budget submission may be required as a result of this phase in the process. Budgeting is the setting of expenditure levels for each of an organization’s functions. It is the estimation and allocation of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
