From the Congressional Glossary – Including Legislative and Budget Terms Backdoor Authority / Backdoor Spending A colloquial phrase for budget authority provided in laws other than appropriations acts, including contract authority and borrowing authority, as well as entitlement authority and the outlays that result from that budget authority. Fiscal Law #1 – Overview … Read more
From the Congressional Glossary – Including Legislative and Budget Terms Bases of Budgeting photo credit: Scott Ableman Methods for calculating budget figures. Not all methods are mutually exclusive. For example, the federal budget includes both net and gross figures and reports both obligations and cash or cash equivalent spending. As a general rule, budget receipts … Read more
From the Congressional Glossary – Including Legislative and Budget Terms Budget Authority photo credit: Carly & Art The key terms of federal spending are budget authority, obligations, outlays, and spendout rate. Congress and the president enact budget authority in law. Budget authority allows federal agencies to incur obligations, such as entering into contracts, employing personnel, … Read more
From the Congressional Glossary – Including Legislative and Budget Terms Intragovernmental Transfers photo credit: Tom – Switzerland Collections from other federal government accounts, often as payment for goods or services provided. Most offsetting receipts from intragovernmental transfers are offset against budget authority and outlays of the agency or subfunction that produced the goods or services. … Read more
From the Congressional Glossary – Including Legislative and Budget Terms Offsetting Receipts photo credit: dev null Collections that are offset against gross outlays but are not authorized to be credited to expenditure accounts. Offsetting receipts are deposited in receipt accounts. Like offsetting collections, they result from (1) businesslike transactions or market-oriented activities with the public, … Read more
From the Congressional Glossary – Including Legislative and Budget Terms Collections photo credit: thewebprincess Amounts received by the federal government during the fiscal year. Collections are classified into three major categories: (1) governmental receipts (also called budget receipts or federal receipts), (2) offsetting collections, and (3) offsetting receipts. Governmental receipts result from the exercise of … Read more