Advocacy Glossary
Appropriations
Appropriations is the process by which a legislature grants agencies the legal authority to spend money. In Congress, twelve annual appropriations bills fund the federal government, and no program operates without one.
Authorizing a program and funding it are separate acts. A program can exist in law and still receive nothing until an appropriations bill gives it money. That is why the spending process is where policy becomes real.
The federal fiscal year starts October 1. When the twelve bills are not finished by then, Congress passes stopgaps or bundles bills together, and the funding fight becomes the story of the fall.
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