LegiStorm

Summary:

Each year, Congress provides discretionary funding for a broad range of government activities through appropriations legislation. As Congress develops and considers such legislation, debate often focuses on the desired level of discretionary spending. This report provides data to frame that debate. Discretionary spending makes up a smaller share of total federal spending than mandatory spending, and mandatory spending on entitlement programs has been largely responsible for increases in overall spending as a percentage of gross domestic product (GDP) in recent decades, however. Discretionary spending has grown rapidly since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in nominal dollars. This growth tracks the uptick in overall inflation since then: When adjusted for inflation, or measured as a percentage of GDP, the peak in discretionary spending is smaller and has subsequently been partially reversed. As a percentage of GDP, discretionary spending in FY2024 is projected to be 6.3%, near its historical low since data were first collected in FY1962, and down from 7.6% in FY2020 and 9.1% in FY2010. In inflation-adjusted dollar terms, discretionary spending peaked in FY2020 and has fallen in subsequent fiscal years. It remains higher than it was before the pandemic in FY2019 but lower than it was in FY2010 during the “Great Recession.” Over time, Congress has attempted to constrain discretionary spending growth through statutory spending limits (also called caps) while allowing exemptions from those limits to provide flexibility to respond to unforeseen or emergency funding needs. Specific categories (often referred to as adjustment categories) of exempt spending include appropriations that Congress designates as being for emergency requirements, Overseas Contingency Operations/Global War on Terror (OCO/GWOT), disaster relief, certain “program integrity” initiatives, wildfire suppression activities, and the decennial census. Each year, a significant amount of discretionary spending is exempt spending. Enacted exempt budget authority was markedly higher in FY2020-FY2022 than in other fiscal years ($615.00 billion, $294.60 billion, and $287.13 billion, respectively), due mostly to a sharp increase in emergency-designated spending in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. After FY2020, base (i.e., non-exempt) budget authority has trended up and exempt budget authority has trended down. Base defense discretionary budget authority has been higher than base nondefense discretionary budget authority in each of the past 10 fiscal years. By contrast, when looking at total (i.e., including adjustment categories) discretionary budget authority over this period, the defense category was higher in five of the 10 years. The House and Senate Appropriations Committees are organized into 12 parallel subcommittees that each have jurisdiction over a set of accounts that fund specific agencies, programs, projects, and activities. Funding under the jurisdiction of each Appropriations subcommittee has generally trended upward in recent years, and most of the subcommittees experienced net nominal increases in enacted base budget authority under their jurisdictions from FY2015 through FY2024. The two sets of subcommittees with the largest shares of base budget authority under their jurisdiction—(1) Defense, and (2) Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies—experienced opposite trends in their share of total base budget authority over this period. The share of total base budget authority under the jurisdiction of the Defense subcommittees increased over this period from 48.4% in FY2015 to 51.9% in FY2024. In contrast, the share of total base budget authority under the jurisdiction of the Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies subcommittees decreased over this period from 15.5% in FY2015 to 12.2% in FY2024.