Budget resolution

Last updated February 03, 2021

In the United States Congress, a budget resolution is part of the United States budget process. It is in the form of a concurrent resolution passed by both the House of Representatives and the Senate but is not presented to the President and does not have the force of law. It sets out the congressional budget.

The budget resolution serves as a blueprint for the actual appropriation process, and provides Congress with some control over the appropriations process. No new spending authority, however, is provided until appropriation bills are enacted. A budget resolution binds Congress, but is not a law. It does allow for certain points of order to be made if the President does not follow the resolution. There may not be a resolution every year; if none is established, the previous year's resolution stays in force.^[1]

Structure of the budget

Fundamentally, the budget resolution is structured along 20 budget functions, or categories of spending. Functional categories often cut across agency lines. For example, the National Defense function includes certain Department of Energy programs as well as Department of Defense programs. Functions are further subdivided into "subfunctions." In addition, though these functions and subfunctions are included in a budget resolution, which determines how Congress considers budget related legislation, they have little correspondence to any committee jurisdictions. Functions are, however, useful in understanding the placement of any given account in the federal government: Each account number has a series of numbers, the last three will indicate the function and subfunction; for example an account ending in "051" will indicate function 050 (Defense) and subfunction 051, which indicates a type of spending within the Defense category.

A listing of the budget functions can be found below.

Function	Title	FY 2005¹ ($ million)
050	National Defense	423,098
150	International Affairs	29,569
250	General Science, Space and Technology	24,459
270	Energy	1,883
300	Natural Resources and Environment	30,286
350	Agriculture	22,353
370	Commerce and Housing Credit	8,092
400	Transportation	69,494
450	Community and Regional Development	12,949
500	Education, Training, Employment and Social Services	91,817
550	Health	248,780
570	Medicare	293,574
600	Income Security	342,324
650	Social Security	516,457
700	Veterans Benefits and Services	65,444
750	Administration of Justice	40,781
800	General Government	19,392
900	Net Interest	177,909
920	Allowances	(798)
950	Undistributed Offsetting Receipts	(63,108)
Total:		2,354,755

^1 Estimated budget authority as presented in the President's budget (in million USD)

In addition to these functions, during the 110th Congress, in S. Con. Res. 21 and S. Con. Res 70, an additional function was included: Function 970, indicating spending on the global war on terrorism (Overseas Deployments and Other Activities (970)).

History

Prior to 1974, there was no Congressional Budget Office nor budget resolution process. When President Richard Nixon began to refuse to spend funds that the Congress had allocated, Congress needed a more formal means by which to challenge him. The resulting Congressional Budget and Impoundment Control Act of 1974 ^[2] created the Congressional Budget Office and directed more control of the budget to CBO and away from the President's Office of Management and the Budget. The Act passed easily as the administration was then embroiled in the Watergate scandal and unwilling to provoke Congress.^[1]

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References

1 2 Budget Resolution Explainer, Rudolph Penner, Urban Institute
↑ Budget and Impoundment Control Act of 1974 ^{[ permanent dead link ]}

External links

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[budget-1] 1 2 Budget Resolution Explainer, Rudolph Penner, Urban Institute

[2] Budget and Impoundment Control Act of 1974 ^{[ permanent dead link ]}

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