ABSTRACT
This chapter describes the context in which National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) budgets that are made and discusses some of the issues that have been raised since Gramm-Rudman-Hollings was enacted in late 1985. Budget making for NASA since 1986 has been particularly difficult because of the collision between the resources needed to implement NASA's so called "core program", and the limited availability of "nondefense discretionary" budgetary resources. The Budget Committee makes assumptions about the cuts that can be made in all appropriated spending accounts, the cuts that can be made in entitlement programs, and the increases that can be made in taxes and user fees to reach the target deficit. The full appropriations committee of each House is limited in what it can give its subcommittees by how much it receives in its 602(a) allocation from the Budget Resolution.
