Federal Budget Process

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The United States Federal Budget Process Joseph Jimenez Northeastern University The United States Federal Budget Process The United States Federal budget process is a very complex system that occurs on two sides of the Federal system. One part comes from the Executive Branch of the Federal Government and the other comes from the Legislative Branch of the Federal Government. Each of these branches of government has different functions and responsibilities in the creation of the budget. The Executive Branch The Executive branch of government, which is comprised of the President and his staff are charged with creating a budget. The primary advisor and overseer of the Federal budget on the behalf of the Executive branch is the Officer…show more content…
Department of State, n.d., para. 3) How the budget process occurs in the Executive Branch begins with the creation of a preliminary budget that the President and his advisors put together. OMB has five resource management offices (RMOs), organized by agency and by program area. These offices, together with OMB’s Budget Review Division, help to carry out OMB’s central activity of assisting the President in overseeing the preparation of the Federal Budget and supervising its administration of Executive Branch agencies. In helping to formulate the President’s spending plans, the RMOs assess the effectiveness of agency programs, policies, and procedures, weigh competing funding demands within and among agencies, and help work with agencies to set funding priorities. Once the Budget is enacted, RMOs are responsible for the execution of Federal budgetary policies and provide ongoing policy and management guidance to Federal agencies. As part of these and other responsibilities, the RMOs provide analysis and evaluation, oversee implementation of policy options, and support government-wide management initiatives. (The White House, n.d., para.…show more content…
One of the prime examples of money that is automatically funded by the budget process is Social Security. An area of the budget that is discretionary in nature is military spending. (Snow 2011) Issues in defense budget spending One of the most controversial areas of the budget is in the area of military spending. The reason that there is some much controversy in this area is because there is so much money that is allotted for military spending. One reason that there are so many issues in the defense budget spending are because this is one area of the budget that is not a mandatory expenditure. The money allocated here is a discretionary expenditure and is subject to review on a regular basis. National security policy is also highly political because it involves the expenditure of very large amounts of money. Defense spending is generally the second-largest category in the federal budget, behind spending on entitlements (social security, Medicare, and the like) and just ahead of service (paying interest) on the national debt. (Snow, 2011, p.
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