Budgeting Process

How does the

budget go from an idea to a law?

Each

February, the Office of Management and Budget, which is part of the

White House, releases the President's budget requests for the next

fiscal year, which starts October 1. The House of Representatives and

the Senate subcommittees hold hearings, make changes, and send the

final bills to the floor for a vote. Once each chamber has passed the

appropriations bills, the President signs it into law and the budget

officially takes effect on the first day of the next fiscal year. See

our Federal

Budget 101 ...

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On February 19, 2011 the House of

Representatives passed the Republican majority's version of the

Fiscal Year 2011 spending bill, which contains funding for the entire

federal government through the end of September. 162 amendments were

offered during consideration of the bill and 67 passed. Let's take a

look at some of the spending cuts proposed in the budget and what

they mean going forward.The spending cut that made the

headlines first was the vote

to remove funding for a second engine for the Pentagon's Joint

Strike Fighter program. Members ...

NPP

Provides State-Level Analysis of the President'sFiscal

Year 2012 Budget RequestToday

the White House released the Obama Administration's budget request

for Fiscal Year 2012, which begins on October 1, 2011.

As

expected, the estimated $3.7 trillion FY2012 request contains a

number of critical policy and fiscal goals, including:

Reducing

the government's annual deficit by placing a five-year freeze on

so-called "non-security" discretionary spending, while

eliminating a series of fossil fuel-related tax breaks and projecting

an end to the Bush-era tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans in 2012;

Investing

in education, with a goal of training more ...

To the Congress of the United States:America is emerging from the worst recession in generations. In 2010, an economy that had been shrinking began to grow again. After nearly 2 years of job losses, America’s businesses added more than one million jobs. Our capital and credit markets are functioning and strong. Manufacturing is coming back. And after teetering on the brink of liquidation just 2 years ago, America’s auto industry is posting healthy gains and returning money to the taxpayers who helped it through a period of turmoil. The determination and resilience of the American people and ...

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Now we move from the large, tumultuous

body of the House

of Representatives to the smaller and more deliberative Senate.

In the Constitutional compromise, the Senate is meant to prevent

hasty action by the House, serve as a check on the ambition of the

President, and protect the rights of individual states. To accomplish

these tasks, the Senate has a vastly different history, role, and

procedure than the House. Unlike the House, in the Senate individual

members have the power to control the legislative process.

In the original Constitution, Senators

were not elected by ...

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Those of us who remember our high

school U.S. Government classes know that the House of the

Representatives and the Senate are quite different in structure and

function. If we really paid attention, we might recall that the

House, which has 435 voting members, 5 non-voting delegates, and a

Resident Commissioner, was meant to be the chamber most closely tied

to the people's wishes. The Senate, which has 100 members, was meant

to represent the states' interests, and deliberate weighty issues

thoroughly. These distinctions are a result of compromise at the

founding ...

As one third of the country prepares

for winter weather this week, state and local governments are

struggling to find a way to pay for the aftermath. Snow and ice

removal is taking a toll on budgets across the country, and winter is

not yet over. Today we'll take a quick look at some of those

governments and how they are planning to meet their needs.

States that do not usually see snow in

the winter, particularly in the South, are finding other places in

the budget to take their snow removal money from. South Carolina, who

spent an ...