ABSTRACT
The appropriations process is tremendously important just by virtue of the fact that it funds most of what government does. After all, holding the purse strings gives Congress a lot of leverage to force an agency to do one thing or not to do another. This chapter looks at how the appropriations bills are put together and passed. It also looks at the appropriations bills themselves—the meaning of the different sections of the bills and, most important, how Congress uses these bills in various ways to direct the work of the agencies. The federal budget is simply too big for Congress to start from scratch each year in deciding what to fund. The operating budgets of all the agencies are included in the discretionary spending category, including those that administer mandatory programs. Contrast that to the Medicare prescription drug plan, a mandatory spending program that Republicans budgeted for and that passed the same year.
