Dear friend,

Appropriations and the budget have been major topics in the news, so I wanted to provide you with your own guide to the federal appropriations and budget process.

There are two types of government funding that make up our federal budget - mandatory and discretionary.

Mandatory spending includes Social Security, Medicare, and other entitlement programs. This money is allocated based on a formula. If people qualify for these programs, the money will be spent without further Congressional approval.

Discretionary spending is dispersed through the appropriations process, and Congress controls how it is spent. This includes categories such as defense, education, transportation, agriculture, and homeland security. Every year Congress must pass  legislation to appropriate discretionary funding and ensure that these programs have money to keep running. 

Let's break discretionary spending down further.

The above chart is the Fiscal Year (FY) 2022 spending levels, broken down into the twelve appropriations categories. The past several years, the budget has passed in an omnibus package, which is a massive compilation of discretionary spending packages that can add up to thousands of pages. House Republicans are calling for single subject spending bills to increase transparency.

A single subject spending bill will group all related funding such as agriculture, into one bill and allow members to vote on that one bill. There are twelve spending bills that need to be passed since there are twelve categories. 

According to the Budget Act of 1974, the Administration should submit their budget to Congress before the first Monday in February to begin the process. Appropriations bills originate in the House, and are then passed on to the Senate. However, the President's request was late this year which delayed the proceeding steps.

If appropriations bills are not enacted before the fiscal year begins on October 1, federal funding will lapse, resulting in a government shutdown. To avoid a shutdown, Congress passed a continuing resolution (CR), which extends funding from the previous year until November 17th to provide additional time for the completion of the appropriations process.

I am focused on passing appropriations bills that responsibly cut funding and deliver on conservative priorities, that will also be passed by the Democratic-controlled Senate and signed into law by President Biden. 

You can track the progress of appropriations bills here. 

As always, we welcome your feedback. To share your thoughts on the appropriations process, please call my D.C. or district offices or submit a comment here.

Sincerely,

Rep. Don Bacon

Member of Congress

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