Gov Ch 14
Terms
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- budget
- a policy document allocating burdens (taxes) and benefits (expenditures)
- appropriations bill
- an act of Congress that actually funds programs within limits established by authorization bills; usually cover one year
- entitlements
- policies for which the Congress has obligated itself to pay X level of benefits to Y number of recipients
- revenues
- the financial resources of the federal government; the individual income tax and Social Security tax are two major sources
- deficit
- an excess of federal expenditures over federal revenues
- Senate Finance Committee
- the Senate Committee that, along with the House Ways and Means Committee, writes the tax codes, subject to the approval of Congress as a whole
- continuing resolutions
- when Congress cannot reach agreement and pass appropriations bills, these resolutions allow agencies to spend at the level of the previous year
- budget resolution
- a resolution binding Congress to a total expenditure level, supposedly the bottom line of all federal spending for all programs
- uncontrollable expenditures
- expenditures that are determined not by a fixed amount of money appropriated by Congress but by how many eligible beneficiaries there are for a program or by previous obligations of the government
- federal debt
- all the money borrowed by the federal government over the years and still outstanding
- incrementalism
- the belief that the best predictor of this year's budget is last year's budget, plus a little bit more (an increment)
- House Ways and Means Committee
- the House of Representatives committee that, along with the Senate Finance Committee, writes the tax codes, subject to the approval of Congress as a whole
- tax expenditures
- revenue losses that result from special exemptions, exclusions, or deductions on federal tax law
- expenditures
- federal spending of revenues; major areas of such spenidng are social services and the military
- Congressional Budget and Impoundment Control Act of 1974
- an act designed to reform the congressional budgetary process; its supporters hoped that it would also make Congress less dependent on the president's budget and better able to set and meet its own budgetary goals
- Congressional Budget Office (CBO)
- advises Congress on the probable consequences of its decisions, forecasts revenues, and is a counterweight to the president's OMB
- Social Security Act
- a 1935 law passed during the Great Depression that was intended to provide a minimal level of sustenance to older Americans and thus save them from poverty
- income tax
- shares of individual wages and corporate revenues collected by the government; the Sixteenth Amendment explicitly authorized Congress to levy this kind of tax
- authorization bill
- an act of Congress that establishes, continues, or changes a discretionary government program or an entitlement; it specifies program goals and maximum expenditures for discretionary programs
- reconciliation
- a congressional process through which program authorizations are revised to achieve required savings