![]() The federal budget is now two-thirds mandatory versus one-third discretionary, rather than the other way around as in the 1970’s. ![]() In its proportion of the federal budget and in real dollars, mandatory spending has been climbing dramatically, and discretionary spending, which includes R&D budgets, has been going down. We must borrow money to pay for these ~3% per year deficits, with the net interest on the federal debt part of the mandatory part of the budget. gross domestic product (GDP), currently around $18 trillion. The differences between federal outlays and revenues have averaged about 3% of the U.S. has been running an annual budget deficit, and it’s getting worse. Here is an issue: For the past 50 years, the U.S. And the research and development (R&D) part of each of those is about 10% together a very small slice of the total federal budget - roughly 3%. This comprises about half defense and half nondefense spending. Relevant to physical science research is the “discretionary” spending, a yearly budget process through the appropriations committees of Congress. Some are authorized for many years, but many are authorized for only a single year. The mandatory parts of the budget are mostly not appropriated (Social Security is appropriated, but it’s still considered a mandatory entitlement program) and they are authorized by bills in Congress through various authorizing committees. Two thirds of it was “mandatory.” This includes what are called entitlement programs: Social Security, and the major healthcare programs for retirees and low-income earners, Medicare and Medicaid, along with other programs like unemployment, food stamps, federal housing loan programs, veterans’ retirement, and the net interest on the U.S. The FY15 enacted federal budget was $3.7 trillion. The House has just, in mid-September, passed a package of twelve appropriations bills, and the Senate Appropriations Committee is in the process of passing appropriations bills out of its various subcommittees.Ĭoncurrent with congressional consideration of the FY+1 budget, the administration is formulating the FY+2 budget, a process led by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and negotiated separately with each agency the formulation process can take as long as one year prior to the submission to Congress.įigure 1 shows a pie chart of the U.S. Congress must assess this budget, usually through hearings and testimony, and enact 12 separate appropriations for the FY+1 budget.īecause of the turnover in the presidential administration last January, submission to Congress of the president’s FY18 proposed budget was delayed until late May, and congressional budget hearings were held for FY18 in June and July. Let’s call that budget the FY budget.Īt the same time, the FY+1 budget is under consideration by Congress that budget is (normally) submitted to Congress by the president during the first week in February of FY, i.e., four months after the start of FY and eight months prior to the start of FY+1. The budget for fiscal year (FY) 2017, from Octoto September 30, 2017, is being executed by agencies now. federal government is normally working on three annual budgets simultaneously. In this Part Two, I will give a short tutorial on the federal budget as a whole and where R&D fits into it, and a mid-September update on the congressional budget marks for FY18.Īs a reminder from Part One, the U.S. research and development (R&D) funding, contrasted with that of some other nations, and then provided an early June update on the administration’s proposed budget for next fiscal year (FY18) and a call to the physics community to respond. ![]() First, in Part One in the September issue, I covered some historical trends in U.S. This Back Page article is spread in two parts across two issues of APS News. I hadn’t actually paid a lot of attention to the entire federal budget until I became a federal employee, and then I found it to be quite sobering. Department of Energy (DOE), which as the APS News readership knows is the largest funder of physical science research in the federal government. Department of State and U.S.When I gave a presentation at the APS “April” Meeting last January I had just completed my appointment as the Director of Science at the U.S. FY2023 Congressional Budget JustificationĬBJ Appendix 3: U.S. The CBJ also includes the Annual Performance Report for the prior fiscal year and the Annual Performance Plan for the upcoming fiscal year. The Congressional Budget Justification (CBJ) is the annual presentation to the Congress that justifies the entire Foreign Operations Budget Request and reflects the continuing process to provide improved strategic focus, data quality, and information on topics of greater Congressional interest. ![]()
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