Clarke and Dawe – European Debt Crisis Also see Federal Debt; Budget Deficit / Budget Surplus; Date Shifting / Fiscal Transparency / Fiscal Illusion; Public Debt / Debt Ceiling; “We Don’t Want Your Clunkers“. Courses Congressional Operations Briefing – Capitol Hill Workshop Drafting Federal Legislation and Amendments Writing for Government and … Read more
From the Congressional Glossary – Including Legislative and Budget Terms Unemployment Rate / Employment-Population Ratio Unemployment and the Unemployment Rate As defined by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), the number of people who do not have jobs but have actively looked for work in the prior 4 weeks and are currently available … Read more
From the Congressional Glossary – Including Legislative and Budget Terms Baseline / Baseline Budgeting / Scorekeeping Dan Mitchell Discussing Dishonest Budget Numbers with John Stossel Baseline: Projection of future revenues, budget authority, outlays, and other budget amounts under assumed economic conditions and participation rates without a change in current policy. The Congressional Budget … Read more
From the Congressional Glossary – Including Legislative and Budget Terms Budget Deficit / Budget Surplus Lesson 1 National Debt & Budget Deficit Explained The relationship between spending and revenues is reflected in the surplus or deficit figure. A surplus is an excess of revenues over outlays, while a deficit is an excess of … Read more
From the Congressional Glossary – Including Legislative and Budget Terms Permanent Appropriations Permanent Appropriations: Budget authority that becomes available as the result of previously enacted legislation (substantive legislation or prior appropriations act) and does not require current action by Congress. Budget authority is considered to be “current” if provided in the current session of Congress … Read more
From the Congressional Glossary – Including Legislative and Budget Terms Date Shifting / Fiscal Transparency / Fiscal Illusion One of the budgetary maneuvers used by Congress. Congress can shift scheduled payments for contracts, or even for federal employee salaries, by a few days in order to move expenditures from one fiscal year to another. For … Read more
From the Congressional Glossary – Including Legislative and Budget Terms “Emergency” Spending / Emergency photo credit: vonderauvisuals Spending with the “emergency” designation does not count against budget caps. While often used for one-time, unforeseen events, this designation has also been used to circumvent budget limits. For example, spending for the census has been designated as … Read more
From the Congressional Glossary – Including Legislative and Budget Terms Public Debt / Debt Ceiling / Debt Limit Debt Limit – A Guide to American Federal Debt Made Easy Public Debt: Cumulative amounts borrowed by the Treasury Department or the Federal Financing Bank from the public or from another fund or account. The … Read more
From the Congressional Glossary – Including Legislative and Budget Terms Federal Debt The Debt Ceiling Explained: Why You Should Care The federal debt consists of public debt, which occurs when the Treasury of the Federal Financing Bank (FFB) borrows money directly from the public or other funds or accounts, and government debt / … Read more
From the Congressional Glossary – Including Legislative and Budget Terms Off-Budget / Off-Budget Entities / On-Budget Entities David Certner: Social Security as an off-budget program Off-budget: Those budgetary accounts (either federal or trust funds) designated by law as excluded from budget totals. As of 2005, the revenues and outlays of the two Social … Read more