Discretionary spending is a spending category through which governments can spend through an appropriations bill. This spending is optional as part of fiscal policy, in contrast to entitlement programs for which funding is mandatory.
In the United States, discretionary spending refers to spending set on a yearly basis by decision of Congress. Such spending is usually authorized by Congress in another act. Provisions of an appropriations act that authorize spending are earmarks. When an authorization act also appropriates funds, it is called mandatory spending.
Famous quotes containing the word spending:
“We like the chase better than the quarry.... And those who philosophize on the matter, and who think men unreasonable for spending a whole day in chasing a hare which they would not have bought, scarce know our nature. The hare in itself would not screen us from the sight of death and calamities; but the chase, which turns away our attention from these, does screen us.”
—Blaise Pascal (1623–1662)