PROCESS Budget Processes: If this series of steps will be used correctly, there would be no Government Shutdown will occur.

These are as follows;AN

The Presidents Budget Proposal Goes to Congress The Presidents Budget Proposal informs Congress of the White Houses vision for the three basic elements of U.S. fiscal policy: (1) how much money the government should spend on public needs and programs; (2) how much money the government should take in through taxes and other sources of revenue; and (3) how large a deficit or surplus will result -- simply the difference between money spent and money taken in. Congress Begins its Work on the Budget With much and often heated debate, Congress hacks away at the presidents Budget Proposal to come up with its own version, known as the Budget Resolution. Like any other piece of legislation, the House and Senate versions of the Budget Resolution must match. As a critical part of the budget process, the congressional Budget Resolution sets spending limits on discretionary government programs for the next 5 years. Congress Creates the Annual Spending Bills The meat of the annual federal budget is, in fact, a set of appropriations, or spending bills distributing the funds allocated in the Budget Resolution among the various government functions.

Roughly one-third of the spending authorized by any annual federal budget is discretionary spending, meaning it is optional, as approved by Congress. The annual spending bills approve discretionary spending. Spending for entitlement programs, like Social Security and Medicare is referred to as mandatory spending. A spending bill must be created, debated and passed to fund the programs and operations of each Cabinet-level agency. Per the Constitution, each spending bill must originate in the House. Since the House and Senate versions of each spending bill must be identical, this always become the most time-consuming step in the budget process. Congress and the President Approve the Spending Bills Once Congress has passed all of the annual spending bills, the president must sign them into law, and there is no guarantee that will happen. Should the programs or funding levels approved by Congress vary too greatly from those set by the president in his or her Budget Proposal, the president could veto one or all of the spending bills. Vetoed spending bills slow the process greatly. Final approval of the spending bills by the president signals the end of the annual federal budget process. The Federal Budget Calendar It starts in February and is supposed to be finished by October 1, the start of the governments fiscal year. However, the federal budget process now tends to run behind schedule, requiring the passage of one or more continuing resolutions that keep the basic functio ns of government running and save us from the effects of a government shutdown.

BUT If those processes fail to enact by the Congress, OMB will provide executive branch agencies with instructions on how to prepare for and operate during a funding gap in its annually revised Circular No. A-11. The circular cites the two Civiletti opinions and the 1995 OLC opinion as background and guidance. The circular establishes two policies regarding the absence of appropriations; 1) a prohibition on incurring obligations unless the obligations are otherwise authorized by law. 2) Permission to incur obligations as necessary for orderly termination of an agencys functions, but prohibition of any disbursement. They also head to develop and maintain shutdown plans. Prior to the 2011 revision of Circular No. A-11, the circular broadly indicated that the plans were to be submitted to OMB when initially prepared and also when revised. The plans themselves were required to contain summary information about the number of employees expected to be on-board before a shutdown and also the number of employees who would be retained during a shutdown. And will therefore decide what agency activities are excepted or otherwise legally authorized to continue during an appropriations hiatus. Furthermore, plans are to address agency actions in two distinct time windows of a shutdown: an initial period of one to five days, which OMB characterized as a short hiatus, and a second period if a shutdown were to continue. Among other things, a shutdown plan is required to include 27 U.S. Executive Office of the President, Office of Management and Budget, Circular No. A-11: Preparation, Submission, and Execution of the Budget, July 2013, Section 124 and etc.

Shutdown Plans 1) A summary of agency activities that will continue and those that will cease. 2) An estimate of the time to complete the shutdown, to the nearest half-day. 3) The number of employees expected to be on-board before implementation of the plan. 4) The total number of employees to be retained, broken out into five categories of exceptions to the Anti-deficiency Act, including employees that are: a) who are paid from a resource other than annual appropriations; b) who are necessary to perform activities expressly authorized by law; c) who are necessary to perform activities necessarily implied by law; d) who are necessary to the discharge of the Presidents constitutional duties and powers; and e) who are necessary to protect life and property. After a plan provides this information for an agency as a whole, the plan is required to further break out some of the information by major component:. In general, the OMB circular refers to employees who are to be furloughed as released, and employees who will not be furloughed as retained or excepted. OMBs circular also instructs agencies to take personnel actions to release employees according to applicable law and Office of Personnel Management (OPM) regulations. And OMB takes place in prior to Government Shutdown.