Yeah. The whole system is crazy.
"The Budget" as proposed by the President every year (at a cost of millions) is often ignored pretty much entirely. Congress only sometimes passes their own budget (technically called a budget resolution), since that resolution only impacts certain procedures, and is not technically required.
Instead what matters are authorizations and appropriations (and backdoor appropriations).
Authorizations are occasionally passed, and set a cap on how much the government can spend on any area.
Appropriations are passed yearly and tell the government how much they to spend in each area, which cannot be greater than the authorized amount.
If something is authorized but congress forgets to appropriate money for it, it is usually still spent in practice either from general appropriations of the organization, or if not applicable, by pretending there was an appropriation of the correct amount. Similarly, if something is appropriated but congress never authorized it, the money will still be spent.
Appropriations are generally viewed as required spending. The executive cannot just choose to only spend half the amount appropriated for building tanks (that the Army does not want anyway!). Thus congress largely controls both much gets spent. They also largely control the amount of income the government makes, by controlling taxes. As spending basically always outpaces income, the rest gets made up via debt, largely by selling treasury bonds.
Yet Congress sets an needless artificial cap on this.
And I mentioned "backdoor appropriations". Occasionally congress accidentally writes a law in a way such that it mandates that the federal government pay something in certain situations. If they do so, then the government must spend that money, appropriated or not, as to not pay would violate the law.
Plus congress has created some really complex rules about how much the government can spend that makes their jobs much harder. Much of this is in the name of nominally "balancing the budget", despite the fact that expenditures always outpace income, so obviously the various loopholes in those rules are being constantly exploited.
Congress could drastically simplify the whole thing by getting rid of the numeric part of the authorization concept, getting rid of budget resolutions, getting rid of debt ceiling, and getting rid of a bunch of dumb rules that add needless complications. But they don't, so we have this complicated mess instead.
"The Budget" as proposed by the President every year (at a cost of millions) is often ignored pretty much entirely. Congress only sometimes passes their own budget (technically called a budget resolution), since that resolution only impacts certain procedures, and is not technically required.
Instead what matters are authorizations and appropriations (and backdoor appropriations).
Authorizations are occasionally passed, and set a cap on how much the government can spend on any area.
Appropriations are passed yearly and tell the government how much they to spend in each area, which cannot be greater than the authorized amount.
If something is authorized but congress forgets to appropriate money for it, it is usually still spent in practice either from general appropriations of the organization, or if not applicable, by pretending there was an appropriation of the correct amount. Similarly, if something is appropriated but congress never authorized it, the money will still be spent.
Appropriations are generally viewed as required spending. The executive cannot just choose to only spend half the amount appropriated for building tanks (that the Army does not want anyway!). Thus congress largely controls both much gets spent. They also largely control the amount of income the government makes, by controlling taxes. As spending basically always outpaces income, the rest gets made up via debt, largely by selling treasury bonds.
Yet Congress sets an needless artificial cap on this.
And I mentioned "backdoor appropriations". Occasionally congress accidentally writes a law in a way such that it mandates that the federal government pay something in certain situations. If they do so, then the government must spend that money, appropriated or not, as to not pay would violate the law.
Plus congress has created some really complex rules about how much the government can spend that makes their jobs much harder. Much of this is in the name of nominally "balancing the budget", despite the fact that expenditures always outpace income, so obviously the various loopholes in those rules are being constantly exploited.
Congress could drastically simplify the whole thing by getting rid of the numeric part of the authorization concept, getting rid of budget resolutions, getting rid of debt ceiling, and getting rid of a bunch of dumb rules that add needless complications. But they don't, so we have this complicated mess instead.