Chapter 14

Question 1

Continuing Resolutions

Answer 1

When Congress cannot reach agreement and pass appropriation bills, these resolutions allow agencies to spend at the level of the previous year

Question 2

Appropriations bill

Answer 2

An act of Congress that actually funds programs with in limits established by authorization bills

Question 3

Authorization bill

Answer 3

An act of Congress or changes a discretionary government program or an entitlement

Question 4

Reconciliation

Answer 4

A congressional process through which program authorization are revised to achieve required savings

Question 5

Budget resolultion

Answer 5

A resolution binding Congress to a total expenditure level supposedly the bottom line of all federal spending for all programs

Question 6

Congressional Budget Office

Answer 6

Advises Congress on the probable consequences of its decision, forecasts revenues, and is a counterweight to the presidents office of Management and budget

Question 7

Congressional Budget and impoundment Control Act of 1974

Answer 7

An act designed to reform the congressional budgetary process. its supporters hoped that it would also make Congress less dependent on the presidents budget and better able to set remeet its own budgetary goals

Question 8

Senate Finance Committee

Answer 8

The senate Committee that, along with the house ways and means committee, writes the tax codes, subject to the approval of Congress as a whole.

Question 9

House ways and Means Committee

Answer 9

House of representatives committee that, along with the Senate Finance Committee writes the tax codes, subject to the approval of Congress as a whole

Question 10

Entitlements

Answer 10

Policies for which Congress has obligated itself to pay X level of benefits to Y Number of recipients

Question 11

uncontrollable Expenditure

Answer 11

Expenditures that are determined- not by a fixed amount of money approved by congress- but by how many eligible benefactors there are for a program or by previous obligations of the government

Question 12

Incrementalism

Answer 12

A description of the budget process where the best predictor of this years budget is last years budget, plus a little more

Question 13

Medicare

Answer 13

A program added to the Social Security system in 1965 that provides hospitalization insurance for the elderly and permits older Americans to purchase in expensive coverage for doctor feels and other health expenses

Question 14

Social security Act

Answer 14

A 1935 law passed during the Great Depression that was intended to provide a minimal level of sustenance to older Americans thus save them from poverty

Question 15

Tax expenditures

Answer 15

Revenue losses that result from special exemptions, exclusions, or deductions on federal tax law

Question 16

Federal Debt

Answer 16

All the money borrowed by the federal government over the years and still outstanding. Today its more than $9 trillion

Question 17

16th amendment

Answer 17

The constitutional amendment adopted in 1913 that explicitly permitted Congress to levy an income tax

Question 18

Revenues

Answer 18

The financial resources of the government. The individual income tax and Social Security tax are two major sources of the federal governments revenue

Question 19

Expenditures

Answer 19

Government spending of revenues. Major areas of federal spending are social services and national defense

Question 20

Deficit

Answer 20

An excess of federal expenditures over federal revenues

Question 21

Budget

Answer 21

Policy document allocating burdens (taxes) and benefits (expenditures)

Question 22

Income Tax

Answer 22

Shares of individuals wages and corporate revenues collected by government