Off-Budget in the United States

Off-Budget in the Federal Budget Process

Meaning of Off-Budget in the congressional and executive budget processes (GAO source): Those budgetary accounts (either federal or trust funds) designated by law as excluded from budget totals. As of the date of this glossary, the revenues and outlays of the two Social Security trust funds (the Old-Age and Survivors Insurance Trust Fund and the Disability Insurance Trust Fund) and the transactions of the Postal Service are the only off-budget accounts. The budget documents routinely report the on-budget and off-budget amounts separately and then add them together to arrive at the consolidated government totals. (See also Nonbudgetary; On-Budget; Outlay; Trust Fund Expenditure Account under Trust Fund Accounts under Account in the President’s Budget; Unified Budget.)

Resources

See Also

• Federal Appropriations
• Entries about the United States Budget Process in the Encyclopedia (including Off-Budget)
• Public Debt

Further Reading

• Legislatures and the budget process: the myth of fiscal control

  (J Wehner, 2010)

• Reconcilable Differences?: Congress, the Budget Process, and the Deficit (JB Gilmour, 1990)
• Fiscal institutions and fiscal performance

  (JM Poterba, J von Hagen, 2008)