Budget, as defined in the Webster's Dictionary means a projection of anticipated need or use, often financial. When defined by the average person it usually means what I can spend to plan for future needs. In the following paragraphs budget will be defined the way the government sees it, a statement of planned revenues and spending for a fiscal year that sets priorities for government programs. Since the beginning of American Legislatures the various appropriations committees simply spent money. When they ran out of money, and they seldom did, they just stopped spending. Government was then a mere shell of what it is today and therein lays the rationale behind the complex budgetary and spending processes of modern legislatures. The budget includes many decisions, large or small, taking into consideration the many rules, procedures, and disagreement of how our government should spend and raise public funds. Because spending has passed the trillion dollar mark, budgets have become huge undertakings requiring both branches involved to devote hundreds of full-time employees to complete the process of the federal budget.
The reason for the difficulty of the budget process came from the nature of the twentieth-century government itself. After the First World War, government's reach began extending. No longer was government simply responsible for maintaining the military and ensuring order, it was responsible for one's livelihood. Programs multiplied and special interests were created. Since there is so much involved in passing a budget and every line item is potentially arguable, special rules and procedures were enacted to simplify the process so that Congress is not occupied exclusively with planning a budget. The annual budget process begins with the president submitting a budget to congress, which has four separate process for making budget decisions, and then to agencies so they can implement their approved budgets.