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FY 2013 Estimated Federal Spending per 2012 Budget Federal funding of science and technology research by year. The spike in 2009 is due to the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act. [57] Discretionary spending is spending that is not mandated on a multi-year basis by existing legislation, and thus must be determined anew in each year's budget.
An increasing percentage of the federal budget became devoted to mandatory spending. [3] In 1947, Social Security accounted for just under five percent of the federal budget and less than one-half of one percent of GDP. [8] By 1962, 13 percent of the federal budget and half of all mandatory spending was committed to Social Security. [3]
As of the fiscal year 2019 budget approved by Congress, national defense is the largest discretionary expenditure in the federal budget. [14] Figure C provides a historical picture of military spending over the last few decades. In 1970, the United States government spent just over $80 billion on national defense.
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Discretionary spending is non-essential spending that isn't mandatory for your basic needs like shelter, food, healthcare, work and personal care. Many expenses are essential, but discretionary...
Graph of U.S. mandatory and discretionary spending from 1966 to 2015. Mandatory spending levels start to diverge from discretionary spending levels in the early 1990s. In 2016, the U.S. federal government spent $1.2 trillion on U.S. discretionary spending. Of this $1.2 trillion, nearly half ($584 billion) was spent on national defense.
The 115th United States Congress initially proposed three "minibus" appropriations bills prior to the beginning of the fiscal year. [3] [4] [5] Two of these were enacted prior to the beginning of the fiscal year, accounting for five bills totaling 77% of federal discretionary funding, and including a continuing resolution until December 7 for the remaining agencies.
Political debates about the United States federal budget discusses some of the more significant U.S. budgetary debates of the 21st century. These include the causes of debt increases, the impact of tax cuts, specific events such as the United States fiscal cliff, the effectiveness of stimulus, and the impact of the Great Recession, among others.