In the United States Congress, a budget resolution is part of the United States budget process. It is in the form of a concurrent resolution passed by both the House of Representatives and the Senate but is not presented to the President and does not have the force of law. It sets out the congressional budget.
The United States House Committee on the Budget and the United States Senate Committee on the Budget draft a budget resolution. Following the traditional calendar, both committees finalize their draft resolution by early April and submit it to their respective floors for consideration and adoption.
Once both houses pass the resolution, selected Representatives and Senators negotiate a conference report to reconcile differences between the House and the Senate versions. The conference report, in order to become binding, must be approved by both the House and Senate.
The budget resolution establishes various budget totals, allocations, entitlements, and may include reconciliation instructions to designated House or Senate committees.
The budget resolution serves as a blueprint for the actual appropriation process, and provides Congress with some control over the appropriations process. No new spending authority, however, is provided until appropriation bills are enacted. A budget resolution binds Congress, but is not a law. It does allow for certain points of order to be made if the President does not follow the resolution. There may not be a resolution every year; if none is established, the previous year's resolution stays in force.
Read more about Budget Resolution: Structure of The Budget, History
Famous quotes containing the words budget and/or resolution:
“The United States is the only great nation whose government is operated without a budget. The fact is to be the more striking when it is considered that budgets and budget procedures are the outgrowth of democratic doctrines and have an important part in developing the modern constitutional rights.... The constitutional purpose of a budget is to make government responsive to public opinion and responsible for its acts.”
—William Howard Taft (1857–1930)
“Had I been less resolved to work, I would perhaps had made an effort to begin immediately. But since my resolution was formal and before twenty four hours, in the empty slots of the next day where everything fit so nicely because I was not yet there, it was better not to choose a night at which I was not well-disposed for a debut to which the following days proved, alas, no more propitious.... Unfortunately, the following day was not the exterior and vast day which I had feverishly awaited.”
—Marcel Proust (1871–1922)