The Federal Budget's Long Emergency

Got a boondoggle you're not proud of? Stick it in a supplemental appropriations bill.

Veronique de Rugy from the December 2006 issue

(Page 3 of 7)

/p> p class="Flargetext c2"> span class="c1"> o:p> /o:p> /span> /p> p class="Flargetext c2"> span class="c1">In theory, supplemental appropriations provide additional funding to an agency during the course of a fiscal year for programs and activities that are considered too urgent to wait until the next year’s budget. The Budget Enforcement Act of 1990 gives emergency bills special exemptions from rules designed to restrain spending. For instance, the requests lack the level of detail used to justify the federal government’s annual budget requests, making accountability more difficult, and supplemental funding is left out of the deficit projections that accompany the annual budget. o:p> /o:p> /span> /p> p class="Flargetext c2"> span class="c1">