The federal budget process is a drawn out, monotonous and intricate process. Both the executive and legislative branch work together to complete this process, many times taking up to 17 months for the budget to even come into office. Budgets are important regarding the spending of the government just as much as the aspect of raising revenue. Depending on which budget is trying to be obtained, will differentiate between the budget steps that will need to take place. The major components of the federal budget process are the President’s budget, congressional budget and appropriations actions, and implementation of the budget and lastly there is an audit and review portion (Ncsl.org, 2015).
According to (Yourish & Stanton, 2015) The First step of the process is on or before the first Monday in February the president must submit to congress a detailed budget request for the next fiscal year, also known as the period the government uses to …show more content…
Those are then sent to the floor for vote and differences which are resolved in conference. Also two thirds of federal budgeting is mandatory programs. Mandatory programs are food stamps, Medicaid, Medicare, and Social Security. However, as for the remaining one third that’s discretionary funding. A great example of discretionary funding would be low income housing programs for which congress can increase or decrease each year or cut off funding altogether. The difference between mandatory funding also known as entitlements and discretionary funding is mandatory programs run year after year unless congress votes to change them. However as for discretionary programs the funding must be approved by congress every year and funding can be increased, decreased, or even cut off as mentioned