The United States budget process begins when the President of the United States submits a budget request to Congress.
The President's budget is formulated over a period of months with the assistance of the Office of Management and Budget, the largest office within the Executive Office of the President.
The budget request includes funding requests for all federal executive departments and independent agencies.
Budget documents include supporting documents and historical budget data and contains detailed information on spending and revenue proposals, along with policy proposals and initiatives with significant budgetary implications.
The President's budget request constitutes an extensive proposal of the administration's intended revenue and spending plans for the following fiscal year.
The budget proposal includes volumes of supporting information intended to persuade Congress of the necessity and value of the budget provisions.
In addition, each federal executive department and independent agency provides additional detail and supporting documentation on its own funding requests.
The Budget and Accounting Act of 1921 requires the President to submit the budget to Congress for each fiscal year which is the 12-month period beginning on October 1 and ending on September 30 of the next calendar year.
The current federal budget law (31 U.S.C. 1105(a)) requires that the President submit the budget between the first Monday in January and the first Monday in February.
In recent times, the President's budget submission has been issued in the first week of February.
The President's budget submission is referred to the House and Senate Budget Committees and to the CBO. Other committees with budgetary responsibilities submit requests and estimates to the budget committees during this time.
In March, the CBO publishes an analysis of the President's budget proposals.
CBO computes a current-law baseline budget projection that is intended to estimate what federal spending and revenues would be in the absence of new legislation for the current fiscal year and for the coming ten fiscal years.
In March, the budget committees consider the President's budget proposals in the light of the CBO budget report, and each committee submits a budget resolution to its house by April 1.
The House and Senate each consider these budget resolutions and are expected to pass them, possibly with amendments, by April 15.
A budget resolution is a concurrent resolution that binds Congress, but is not a law, and so does not require the President's signature.
The budget resolution serves as a blueprint for the actual appropriation process, and provides Congress with some control over the appropriations process.
No new spending authority, however, is provided until appropriation bills are enacted.
Once both houses pass a budget resolution, selected Representatives and Senators negotiate a conference report to reconcile differences between the House and the Senate versions.
The conference report, in order to become binding, must be approved by both the House and Senate.
In general, funds for federal government programs must be authorized by an "authorizing committee" through enactment of legislation.
Then, through subsequent acts by Congress, budget authority is then appropriated by the Appropriations Committee of the House.
In principle, committees with jurisdiction to authorize programs make policy decisions, while the Appropriations Committees decide on funding levels, limited to a program's authorized funding level, though the amount may be any amount less than the limit.
The budget resolutions specify funding levels for the House and Senate Appropriations Committees and their 12 subcommittees, establishing various budget totals, allocations, entitlements, and may include reconciliation instructions to designated House or Senate committees.
The appropriations committees, starting with allocations in the budget resolution, draft appropriations bills, which may be considered in the House after May 15.
Once appropriations committees pass their bills, they are considered by the House and Senate.
When there is a final budget, the spending available to each appropriations committee for the coming fiscal year is usually provided in the joint explanatory statement included in the conference report.
The appropriations committees then allocate that amount among their respective subcommittees, each to allocate the funds they control among the programs within their jurisdiction.
A conference committee is typically required to resolve differences between House and Senate appropriation bills.
Once a conference bill has passed both chambers of Congress, it is sent to the President, who may sign the bill or veto it. If he signs, the bill becomes law.
Otherwise, Congress must pass another bill to avoid a shutdown of at least part of the federal government.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_budget_process