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Politics : Actual left/right wing discussion
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To: TimF who wrote (10002)8/3/2011 12:26:50 PM
From: Lane31 Recommendation  Read Replies (1) of 10087
 
Thanks for the clarification. That's what I originally thought you were saying.

If it applied to entitlements because they are spent according to law, it would apply to all spending in a budget or continuing resolution since those things are also laws.

There are laws and then there are laws.

Appropriated federal moneys are just line items in a budget until they are committed, then obligated, by some bureaucrat with the authority to take that action. With limits, the administration can choose to not spend that money or to reallocate it to other uses. That's when the legal financial obligation occurs, often in the form of a contract. Entitlements are very different. Entitlements aren't even budget by amount. Appropriations for ordinary programs are made for X amount of money. Its costs are fixed. Entitlements don't have budgets in the ordinary sense of the word. Entitlements are set up based on criteria for who is entitled. However many show up that meet the criteria, that's what the program costs.

In the case of ordinary budgeting, the law says that certain moneys have been designated and will be available for spending by the program. There is nothing in the law that creates a legal financial obligation so there's nothing on which to default. In the case of entitlements, the law says that people who meet the criteria get the benefit. That's a legal financial obligation. Seems to me that default occurs when the benefit cannot be delivered due to shortage of funds.
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