Discretionary spending

Discretionary spending is whatever Congress funds through the annual appropriations acts. If the acts are not passed, that authority lapses, which is why a lapse in appropriations shows up as agencies closing rather than as benefit cheques stopping.

It is the smaller share of the budget. The larger share is mandatory spending, which flows from permanent law and continues without annual action.

A worked example

The budget for a year has $1.9 trillion of discretionary spending and $4.1 trillion of mandatory spending, plus interest. The $1.9 trillion is what the twelve appropriations bills decide: defence, the agencies, research, national parks, the courts. If those bills are late, that $1.9 trillion is what lapses. The $4.1 trillion — Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, veterans’ benefits under permanent law — keeps flowing regardless. The figures are illustrative; the shape is not: the part Congress fights over each year is the minority of the whole.

Roughly half of discretionary spending is defence. The rest is everything else the government does that is not a benefit programme.

How to read it in coverage

“Congress cut spending by $X” usually means discretionary spending, and often means a cut relative to a projected increase rather than to last year’s level. A “freeze” holds the total flat, which is a real-terms cut once inflation is counted. “Non-defence discretionary” is the slice most often targeted because it is the only one Congress both controls annually and is willing to touch. The annual fight is over this minority. The majority — mandatory programs and interest — does not wait for the twelve bills.