More than 25 cents of every discretionary dollar spent by the federal government is unauthorized, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office. Basically, that means that more than a quarter, $310 billion, of the federal budget’s appropriations are spent on autopilot.
That portion is actually down one percentage point from 2015, when it reached a historical peak of 27 percent. The unauthorized portion of the budget has been on a gradual rise since 1993, when just 6 percent of discretionary spending was unauthorized.
“Critics of the growth in unauthorized appropriations believe that this growth shows that Congress is failing to perform sufficient oversight, which is part of the authorizing process,” says Veronique de Rugy, a senior research fellow at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University. “According to the critics, because of the lack of oversight, programs in need of reform continue to exist on autopilot.”
Even though the spending isn’t authorized, some very high-profile agencies are able to continue working. According to Politico’s Danny Vinik, the FBI, the State Department and the National Weather Service have not been reauthorized in more than six years.
The Federal Election Commission hasn’t been reauthorized in 35 years. Someone born in 1981 could run for president today and never know a world where the Federal Election Commission has proper congressional authorization (although it would probably not be very different from today’s world).
In the end, the authorization process might not matter that much. Sen. Kelly Ayotte, R-N.H., complained to the Budget Committee that the Appropriations Committee funds programs other committees never authorize. “They spend lots of money on things that were never authorized, were never supported,” Ayotte said. “The two are totally disconnected. It’s unbelievable.”
Perhaps the problem could be solved by slashing the size of the federal government. “Regardless of whether one believes that the growing volume of unauthorized appropriations is a real problem,” de Rugy says, “it does appear to be emblematic of an overgrown federal government that is simply too large to manage.”
Jason Russell is a commentary writer for the Washington Examiner.
