Spring and Summer are Appropriations Seasons: What to Know

On March 9, President Biden submitted to Congress a $6.8 trillion budget for fiscal 2023. As is normal, the bulk of that amount is mandatory spending, required by law. Roughly $1.6 trillion, however, is for discretionary spending. The congressional budget war will be about changes to the laws governing mandatory spending and the total amount and allocation of discretionary spending. 

The direction of a nation–its very soul–is determined by what it spends its money on. The Indivisible movement exists to mobilize and enhance our voices so we have some say in what kind of nation we are—and will become. We are lucky to have Senator Padilla on the Senate Budget Committee for the 118th Congress, and Senator Feinstein on many of the twelve individual appropriations committees. Please call them in support of progressive values during the appropriations process using our call script.

The Process 

The process is going to be long, confusing, and frustrating. If We the People raise our voices loudly and consistently, we will win some victories and suffer some defeats. If we remain passively silent, there will be fewer achievements and more losses. 

In theory, there are phases to the annual budget battle:

  1. The president submits a budget proposal in March:
    1. The President’s Budget for Fiscal Year 2024, White House Fact Sheet, 3/09/2023
  2. The House and Senate budget committees set topline maximum amounts for each of the twelve appropriation bills. With Congress gridlocked by partisan warfare, this rarely happens on time. Instead, the top party leaders eventually end up meeting in secret to set the top-line numbers. This empowers the leaders and disempowers everyone else, including constituents like us.
    1. Check out the latest bills the House is reviewing here: Bills and Resolutions -- GovTrack.us 
    2. Follow what the Senate has on its calendar here: U.S. Senate: Hearings & Meetings
  3. Once the two budget committees (House and Senate) have given the twelve department-area committees (Defense, Interior, HHS, etc.) their top-line amounts, those committees are supposed to draft the twelve appropriation bills that allocate how their amount is to be divvied up among the various agencies and programs they supervise. 
  4. Eventually, one or more appropriation bills may (or may not) be passed by both House and Senate. For appropriations that remain undone, party leaders again meet in secret to mush them together into one or more omnibus bills that no one has the time to read, debate, or amend. This again gives enormous power to a handful of party leaders. 
  5. Presidential signature (or veto) on appropriation bills (if any) or long-term CRs (which may be likely). 

In practice, by the time they reach stage 3, it may be that all the deadlines have been blown, and there will be a government shutdown crisis that requires one or more continuing resolutions [CRs] to keep the government running.

Defense Spending 

Understanding the "defense budget" is like peering at one of those wavy funhouse mirrors through a kaleidoscope. Terms like "defense spending" and "national security budget" mean different things depending on who is talking and what their political agenda is. When a politician, pundit, or reporter wants to minimize the amount, they equate "defense spending" with the Department of Defense (DoD) appropriation (sometimes described as the "Pentagon Budget"). But in real life "defense spending" actually includes large amounts that are not included in the DoD appropriation, including the following: 

  • The billions being spent on a new generation of nuclear weapons (Dept. of Energy Budget)

  • Military aid and support to foreign allies (State Dept. budget)

  • Military construction of bases and facilities (Military and Veterans appropriations budget)

  • Separate off-budget Ukraine appropriations

  • Some portions of Homeland Security appropriations (difficult to tease out)

  • Some portions of the secret "dark budget" for CIA, NSA, DIA, NSC, etc. (impossible to discern)

  • Overseas Contingency Operations/Global War on Terrorism (OCO/GWOT)  

The result is that internet searches return varying amounts for "defense spending," "military budget," "national security costs," and so forth. Most (but not all) of the items listed above are specified by the annual National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), but they are spread out over (and buried in the details of) different appropriation bills. 

Table S-7 on page 162 of the president's 2024 Budget Proposal provides some useful clarity:

RequestDollar totalPercentage of total
2024 national security request$1,014 billion60%
2024 non-security request$560 billion33%
2024 veterans' health request$121 billion7%

So "bottom line" (as wonks are wont to say), this budget proposal calls for devoting 60 percent of all federal discretionary spending to national security and only 33 percent to education, healthcare, housing, environment, etc. The Republican Party and corporate Democrats are going to rant, rage, and insist on increasing the share spent on national security (most of which goes to military-industrial corporations) and decreasing the amount spent on improving the lives of the American people and defending us from climate catastrophe. 

We are hoping that with Senator Sheldon Whitehouse chairing the Senate Budget Committee in the 118th Congress, our annual appeal to include addressing the climate crises in the NDAA will get more traction.

Resources

Deep DiveAnna KrasnerBudget, Continuing Resolution, Budget Negotiations, Discretionary Spending