# Budget Hub Reader map for **/Policy/Budget/** — the federal budget as a living, year-over-year ledger: what the government actually spends, on what, each fiscal year and across presidential cycles. The spine is one page per [[Federal Budget Process]], added as each year closes, so this folder tracks the present day. The organizing question: **what do we spend money on, and how does that square with what each party says it does?** Reading the budget means separating the *rhetoric* (cuts, efficiency, "waste, fraud, and abuse") from the *outlays* (the cash that actually left the Treasury). On the ledger, the four giants — [[Social Security]], [[Medicare]], the [[Medicaid]]-anchored Health function, and [[Net Interest on the Debt]] — now sit within ~$80B of each other, and net interest has quietly passed national defense (see [[Defense Spending Landscape]]). ## The fiscal-year ledger (the spine) The headline picture, FY2022–FY2026. Outlays / revenues / deficit in $ billions; debt held by public end-of-FY in $ trillions. FY2026 is a CBO projection (the year ends Sep 30, 2026) — **revised upward to ~−$2,100B in CBO's July 2026 *Monthly Budget Review***, from ~−$1,900B in the February baseline, on tariff revenue running ~$250B short after the IEEPA ruling. Outlays and revenues still carry February figures. | FY | Outlays | Revenues | Deficit | Debt (public) | Status | |---|--:|--:|--:|--:|---| | [[Federal Budget FY2022]] | 6,273 | 4,897 | −1,376 | 24.3 | actual | | [[Federal Budget FY2023]] | 6,135 | 4,441 | −1,694 | 26.3 | actual | | [[Federal Budget FY2024]] | 6,735 | 4,918 | −1,817 | 28.3 | actual | | [[Federal Budget FY2025]] | 7,010 | 5,235 | −1,775 | 30.3 | actual | | [[Federal Budget FY2026]] | ~7,400 | ~5,600 | ~−2,100 | ~32 | projected | | [[Federal Budget FY2027 Request]] | — | — | — | — | request | ## What we spend on (spending categories) The ~20 standardized OMB **budget functions** are the granular "what we spend on." The big ones are full pages; [[Budget Functions]] holds the complete table. - [[Social Security]] — function 650; the single largest line (~$1.58T FY2025) - [[Medicare]] — function 570 (~$1.0T FY2025) - [[Medicaid]] — the political core of function 550 Health (~$0.98T FY2025) - [[Net Interest on the Debt]] — function 900 (~$0.97T FY2025); now > defense - [[National Defense]] — function 050 (~$0.92T FY2025); see also [[Defense Spending Landscape]] - [[Income Security]] — function 600 (~$0.70T FY2025): [[SNAP]], UI, refundable credits - [[SNAP]] — the political core of function 600 ($95.7B in FY2025 benefits, ~37M participants); where the error-rate-versus-fraud-rate fight lives - [[Veterans Benefits]] — function 700 (~$0.38T FY2025) - [[Administration of Justice]] — function 750 (~$85B FY2025): DOJ, courts, prisons, immigration/border enforcement - [[International Affairs]] — function 150 (~$45B FY2025): the State/foreign-aid budget, post-USAID - [[Budget Functions]] — the full ~20-function reference table ## The machinery (process) How a budget actually becomes spending — and where it breaks: - [[How Federal Money Moves]] — the full pipeline, appropriation to cash out the door *(the Foundations anchor)* - [[Appropriations Process Flow]] — the ASCII map: authorization → appropriation → apportionment → outlay, with the CR/shutdown branch - [[Appropriations Subcommittee Crosswalk]] — the companion ASCII map: which of the twelve bills funds which agency, and the seven agencies whose money lane doesn't match their department - [[Federal Grant Lifecycle]] — the downstream ASCII map: apportionment → NOFO → award → drawdown → closeout, and every administrative way an appropriated dollar is stopped before it arrives - [[Federal Budget Process]] — the whole cycle, start to finish - [[President's Budget Request]] — the opening bid (the [[Office of Management and Budget]] product) - [[Budget Resolution]] — Congress's non-binding blueprint; the gateway to reconciliation - [[Appropriations Process]] — the twelve bills that actually fund the government - [[Continuing Resolution]] — the stopgap when the twelve don't pass on time - [[Government Shutdown]] — what happens when even the stopgap fails (the 2025 shutdown ran 43 days, the longest ever) - [[Reconciliation]] — the filibuster-proof fast track *(in /Concepts/)* - [[Debt Ceiling]] — the borrowing-limit hostage cycle - [[Rescission and Impoundment]] — clawing back enacted spending; the [[Impoundment Control Act]] fight - [[Treasury Warrant]] — Treasury opens the account on its books - [[Apportionment]] — OMB meters the money out (the impoundment-era chokepoint) - [[Antideficiency Act]] — the criminal-law wall that makes appropriations binding *(in /Policy/Legislation/)* ## The vocabulary - [[Discretionary vs Mandatory Spending]] — the master distinction; ~73% of outlays now run on autopilot - [[Authorization vs Appropriation]] — Congress's two-key system, and its decay - [[Obligation]] — the moment money is legally committed; the unit budget law polices - [[Entitlement]] — programs paid by legal claim, not annual vote - [[Outlays vs Budget Authority]] — what's authorized vs. what actually leaves the Treasury - [[Baseline and Scoring]] — how the [[Congressional Budget Office]] measures "cuts" against a moving baseline - [[PAYGO]] — the pay-as-you-go offset rules (and how they get waived) - [[Sequestration]] — automatic across-the-board cuts (the enforcement hammer that rarely fires) - [[Budget Gimmicks]] — timing shifts, CHIMPs, magic asterisks, sunsets - [[Supplemental Appropriations]] — emergency funding outside the regular bills - [[Overseas Contingency Operations]] — the retired war-funding slush fund - [[Earmarks]] — directed spending / Community Project Funding - [[Trust Funds]] — the Social Security / Medicare financing accounts - [[On-Budget vs Off-Budget]] — unified vs. walled-off accounting - [[User Fees and Offsetting Collections]] — why function lines can go negative - [[Fiscal Year]] — the Oct 1 – Sep 30 mechanics - [[Monthly Treasury Statement]] — the official monthly receipts/outlays/deficit scoreboard; Table 5 feeds the FY-page agency tables - [[Daily Treasury Statement]] — the daily cash ledger; the debt-ceiling X-date and payment-freeze watch ## The RWKB through-line The receipts on recurring fiscal claims: - **Rhetoric vs. outlays** — the spending that gets denounced is dwarfed by the spending that grows on autopilot. See [[Discretionary vs Mandatory Spending]]. - **[[DOGE]]'s claimed vs. real savings** — ~$215B claimed; a small fraction independently verifiable; no measurable dent in the deficit. See [[DOGE Claimed vs Verified Savings]]. - **[[Reconciliation]] as the workaround** — the [[Big Beautiful Bill]] (2025) is the marquee case: a tax-and-spend package muscled through the budget process to dodge the filibuster. - **Executive power over the purse** — [[Rescission and Impoundment]] and the [[Russell Vought]] doctrine of impoundment vs. the [[Impoundment Control Act]]. - **The structural story** — [[Net Interest on the Debt]] over $1 trillion reframes every "we can't afford it" argument. ## Cross-links - [[Federal Deficit and National Debt]] · [[National Debt Timeline]] — the deficit/debt analysis layer (/Subjects/Economics/) - [[Tax Code Hub]] — the revenue side of the same ledger - [[Tax Cuts and Jobs Act]] · [[Inflation Reduction Act]] · [[Big Beautiful Bill]] — the big fiscal laws - [[Congressional Budget Office]] · [[Office of Management and Budget]] · [[Government Accountability Office]] — the scorekeepers