As the description of the evolution suggests, the budget process currently in place has become a complex web of rules and enforcement procedures. The budget comes together as a result of myriad actions affecting receipts and expenditures. There is no single action, no single measure, which dictates all budgetary outcomes. Instead, the budget process includes consideration of the budget resolution, revenue measures (both temporary and permanent), appropriations bills (13 regular annual appropriations bills as well as any necessary supplemental appropriations bills or continuing resolutions), and authorizations (including entitlement legislation). Besides these steps, the process periodically may involve other major decisions, such as the consideration of reconciliation legislation or increases in the statutory debt limit. THE CONGRESSIONAL BUDGET PROCESS TODAY
In practice, the budget process in Congress is normally initiated by presidential submission of his budget proposal each year, as first required by the Budget and Accounting Act of 1921 (31 U.S. Code 1105 requires the president to submit his budget by the first Monday in February). Congress, however, is not bound by any of the President's assumptions or recommendations, and may originate any budgetary legislation it chooses.
The process of crafting a congressional budget formally begins when each committee submits its views and estimates to the House or Senate Budget Committee on all budget matters within its jurisdiction (currently required within 6 weeks of the President's budget submission under section 13112(a)(5) of the Budget Enforcement Act). This information, as well as other information gathered or produced by the Budget Committees, including baseline projections of the costs of continuing programs without policy or statutory changes, is used to construct a concurrent resolution on the budget. The Congressional Budget Act provides a deadline of April 15 for adoption of the budget resolution (section 300), but final agreement is often not reached until late April or early May.
The budget resolution does not mention specific programs or accounts, although the aggregates, allocations among 20 functional categories, and any reconciliation instructions are all necessarily based on non-binding assumptions about individual programs. As adopted, this resolution reflects budgetary priorities and assumptions about how the legislative branch expects to achieve its collective budgetary goals.
One way in which Congress enforces its budget decisions is through a system called ``crosswalking'' in which the totals in the budget resolution are allocated to each committee with budgetary jurisdiction (under section 302(a) of the Congressional Budget Act; for FY 1991-1998 these allocations must also be consistent with the discretionary spending caps created by the BEA). Each committee is then required to subdivide its share of the budget among its programs or subcommittees (under section 302(b)). These subdivisions are then enforced by points of order. Enforcement in the Senate is enhanced by the requirement in section 904(c) of the 1974 Budget Act that a vote of three-fifths is necessary to waive many of the points of order established in that Act or in the Balanced Budget and Emergency Deficit Control Act of 1985.
Although Congress is expected to adopt the budget resolution prior to any other action on spending or revenues, the Congressional Budget Act allows (in section 303(b)) the House to begin consideration of appropriations bills after May 15 regardless of the procedural status of the budget resolution. After passage by the House, each is then referred to a Senate Appropriations subcommittee with jurisdiction parallel to its House counterpart. (By custom, the House considers all appropriation bills first). The overall level of funding in appropriations bills is constrained by the amount allocated to the Appropriations Committee (as well as suballocations and applicable spending cap restrictions imposed by the Budget Enforcement Act) under the budget resolution. Both the Senate and the House subdivide appropriation action into 13 separate bills, considered by appropriation subcommittees with jurisdiction over funding for specific portions of the government.
In addition to the budget resolution limits and appropriation committee activity, appropriations for individual programs or agencies may also be influenced in various ways by the authorization process. An authorization is legislation establishing a government entity (such as a department or agency), activity, or program. As substantive law, authorizations are permanent unless otherwise specified. By itself, an authorization generally does not permit any funds to be obligated; it only allows appropriations of such funds to be made. In current practice, authorizations establish government programs, agencies, and duties, as well as use statutory language explicitly to authorize the enactment of appropriations, often specifying specific limits or conditions for appropriations.
Convergent trends in modern congressional practice have made the separation between authorizations and appropriations somewhat less clear in recent years. Since World War II there has been a transition to shorter term, even annual, authorizations, and an increasing specificity of authorization language, including dollar amounts. This development has meant that there is sometimes little to distinguish between authorizations from appropriations, except that they use the language ``. . . hereby authorized to be appropriated'' rather than ``. . . hereby appropriated.''
As noted above, in recent years reconciliation has become an important procedure for Congress to make changes in both entitlements and revenues. Reconciliation is triggered when the budget resolution includes instructions directing congressional committees to achieve savings in tax or spending programs under their jurisdiction. Congressional committees comply with these instructions by reporting to the Budget Committees proposed changes necessary to implement the revenue and spending targets in the budget resolution. The Budget Committees package these responses into omnibus measures which are then considered in their respective Chamber under special procedures described in the Congressional Budget Act (in sections 306, 310, and, by reference, section 305, as well as section 313 for the Senate). As with the budget resolution, these provisions impose restrictions on both debate and amending.
Overarching all these procedures for enacting budgetary legislation are the procedures for enforcing budgetary discipline, which are currently codified in the Budget Enforcement Act, as enacted in 1990 and revised in 1993. The Act enforces budget discipline through the dual system of discretionary spending caps and the PAYGO process. If Congress appropriates in excess of a spending cap, a sequester order will be issued by the President to reduce budget authority to the required limit. Revenues and mandatory spending are restricted by PAYGO, which would require that the net effect of new mandatory spending and revenue legislation be deficit neutral. Although the level of mandatory spending and revenues can change due to economic or technical factors, Congress is constrained from making changes which would worsen the deficit. If the net effect of congressional actions would increase the deficit, a sequester order would be issued to reduce nonexempt mandatory spending to the level necessary to bring revenues and mandatory spending back into the required balance.
The current budget process, then, represents the cumulative effect of many changes that have evolved over time. The distinction between authorization and appropriation dates to the 19th century, while the requirement for a Presidential budget submission has its roots in the early part of the current century. Procedures governing congressional consideration of the budget (as established by the Budget Act) and enforcement of deficit reduction efforts (as codified by GRH and the BEA) are of more recent development. Present budget rules must accommodate this myriad of requirements resulting from actions taken at various times over the past 200 years.