Trends in Mandatory Spending (CRS Report for Congress)
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| Release Date |
Revised Nov. 7, 2023 |
| Report Number |
R44641 |
| Report Type |
Report |
| Authors |
D. Andrew Austin |
| Source Agency |
Congressional Research Service |
| Older Revisions |
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Summary:
Federal spending is divided into three broad categories: discretionary spending, mandatory
spending, and net interest. Those categories are procedural—that is, how Congress
provides or has provided spending authority differs among those categories. The Budget
Enforcement Act of 1990 (BEA; P.L. 101-508) provides a statutory definition for those terms,
which are therefore referred to as BEA categories. To large extent, however, the type of spending
differs across those categories.
Discretionary spending, by and large, funds operations of federal agencies. Net interest spending
is the government’s interest payments on debt held by the public, offset by interest income that
the government receives.
Major entitlement programs such as Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid make up the bulk of
mandatory spending. Other mandatory spending funds various income support programs,
including Supplemental Security Income (SSI), unemployment insurance, and the Supplemental
Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), as well as federal employee and military retirement and
some veterans’ benefits. In recent decades, mandatory spending has been the largest component
of the federal budget.
