Federal Spending
Discretionary Spending
About 25% of federal spending is called “discretionary spending,” because the amount of spending flows from annual discretionary funding decisions by the House and Senate Appropriations Committees. These decisions are reflected in the 12 Annual Appropriations Bills. For total dollar amounts, click HERE.
Discretionary spending is usually presented in 2 sub-categories:
Defense Discretionary and Non-Defense Discretionary (NDD) Spending.
Mandatory (Direct) Spending
The largest block of federal spending — about 60% — is called “direct spending” because the outlays flow directly from legal obligations of the federal government established in authorizing laws. Direct spending is also referred to as “mandatory spending” because it is mandated by legal obligations written into law (such as Social Security benefits). For total dollar amounts, click HERE.
Program and policy developments in the various discretionary and mandatory programs are tracked in our news portal.