With the impending Congressional approval of a fiscal year (FY) 2023 government spending bill, and President Biden’s likely signature of approval, lawmakers will have approved a 2023 discretionary budget around $300 billion, or more than 23 percent, higher than just two short years ago.
FY 2021 marked the end of the 10-year Budget Control Act (BCA) era. This 2011 law was flawed, but its decade of spending caps did hold down spending increases relative to what they could have been in the discretionary federal budget, the roughly $1.6 trillion slice of federal spending that Congress controls from year to year. (Discretionary spending makes up around 30 percent of federal spending, while another 70 percent is effectively on autopilot under either mandatory spending categories or required interest payments on the nation’s debt.)
With the end of BCA spending caps on September 30, 2021, Congress has had few restraints on growth in discretionary spending. And lawmakers have certainly acted without restraint.
Based on NTU Foundation’s estimates of Congressionally approved, base budget authority (which does not include emergency spending), from FYs 2021 through 2023, the brand new FY 2023 government spending bill will be just over $1.6 trillion – $304.3 billion or 23.4 percent higher than FY 2021 spending.
Across the 12 appropriations bills that Congress approves each year, spending increases have not been equal in the past two years. For example, funding for military construction projects and the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) has seen a huge, 36.7-percent increase over two years. Congress also approved a 30.2-percent increase to its own budget (Legislative Branch) in the past two years, though it is the smallest of the 12 appropriations bills by far in overall spending.
The largest appropriations bill has also seen major increases. The Department of Defense (DoD) spending bill jumped from $627.3 billion in FY 2021 to $797.7 billion in FY 2023. That’s an increase of $170.4 billion or 27.2 percent.
Even outside these blockbuster increases, Congress has had no trouble approving spending increases well above the rate of inflation for most of the 12 appropriations bills. The State Department (+25.7 percent over two years); Homeland Security (+17.0 percent); labor, health, and education (+19.1 percent); and transportation and housing (+17.0 percent) have all seen major budget plus-ups.
Although some Congressional Republicans are talking more about spending cuts and budget discipline in 2023, some of their favored spending categories (defense, homeland security, veterans affairs) have seen the largest increases from FY 2021 to FY 2023.
That said, Republicans are fair to point out that Democrats have used their past two years of control in Washington to pass through legislation (or implement through executive action) major spending increases for favored programs in health care, education, social welfare, and more.
One major flaw of recent appropriations negotiations is the so-called “parity” principle, where Republicans and Democrats have fought to ensure defense and non-defense spending are at roughly similar levels. In practice, this means that defense and non-defense spending both increase, to the detriment of taxpayers.
In a debate over whether Republicans (fighting for defense spending) or Democrats (fighting for non-defense spending) are “winning” the parity battle, you could argue either way whether looking at budget authority (defined by the Congressional Budget Office as “the amount of money available to a federal agency for a specific purpose”) or outlays (defined by CBO as the “issu[ing of] checks, disburse[ment of] cash, or mak[ing of] electronic transfers to liquidate (or settle) an obligation.”
On budget authority, Republicans are “winning.” On outlays, Democrats are “winning.” In both cases, American taxpayers are losing.
On the basis of budget authority, Congress has approved $4.371 trillion in base spending overall for the past three years, roughly $13,080 per person in the U.S. or $4,360 per person per year. On a per-taxpayer basis (since not every American is a taxpayer), it’s $19,432 per taxpayer or $6,477 per taxpayer per year.
None of these calculations include budget authority approved by Congress outside of the base budget for discretionary spending categories, for example for natural disasters or war funding. Those amounts total at least an additional $540.9 billion for FYs 2021 through 2023, including the $75 billion for Ukraine and natural disasters added to the FY 2023 government spending bill. Ideally, Congress would be paying for this emergency spending with reductions to the base part of the federal budget. Again and again, they have failed to do so.
The massive increases to discretionary spending controlled by Congress in the past two years demonstrates that new budget discipline is needed next year. NTU Foundation has estimated that legislation from Rep. Jodey Arrington (R-TX) to reinstitute 10 years of discretionary spending caps would save taxpayers north of $500 billion over a decade. That would be a good place for Congress to start.