U.S. Fiscal Budgeting and Government - Essay Example

The proposal has recently sparked debates on both the Republican and the Democrat controlled Congress, an ordinary occurrence prevalent in American history especially during those times when the president puts forward his budgetary plan. Both the Republican and the Democratic parties would often disagree on what causes imbalance on the Federal budget, and oftentimes, heated debates soon ensue with regards the subject. The issue of budget in the US is an interesting topic to listen to except that ordinary Americans are not privy to the language and the esoteric terms employed in this discussion.

It is also imperative that the public and the US legislators be able to pinpoint the sources of imbalance in the federal government expenditures. The president, as a rule, submits his proposal in the month of February after which it is submitted to the Congress on the first Monday of the said month. As this is only a proposal, the budget constitutes and specifies the government’s intended spending for the following fiscal year. This proposal is backed by voluminous documents aimed at convincing the Congress of the importance and value of the budget provisions.

The cabinet and the agencies under the Federal government likewise submit their proposals which will consequently be included in the final version of the proposed budget (Taylor 1950). This proposal contains some line items specified as discretionary and some as mandatory expenditures. Discretionary spending obliges a yearly appropriation bill, a piece of legislation which should be enacted and determined by the Appropriations Committee of both Houses of Congress – the Senate and the House of Representatives.

This spending is under the discretion of the Congress and usually lasts for one year. On the other hand, mandatory spending is a spending which also requires legislation but is not dependent on a yearly appropriation bill. Examples of these are Social Security