The federal government's discretionary spending — roughly $1.7 trillion per year in recent budgets — is funded through twelve separate annual appropriations bills. Each bill covers a cluster of federal departments and agencies assigned to one of the twelve subcommittees of the House and Senate Appropriations Committees. In theory, all twelve should be enacted before October 1, the start of the federal fiscal year. In practice, this has happened exactly once in the last thirty years.
The Twelve Appropriations Bills
The twelve bills and their primary coverage are:
- Agriculture, Rural Development, and Related Agencies — USDA, FDA, farm programs, rural development
- Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies — DOJ, FBI, NASA, NOAA, Census Bureau
- Defense — Department of Defense operations and procurement (the largest bill by dollar amount)
- Energy and Water Development — Department of Energy, Army Corps of Engineers, nuclear weapons programs
- Financial Services and General Government — IRS, Treasury, GSA, executive agencies
- Homeland Security — DHS, TSA, Secret Service, FEMA, Customs and Border Protection
- Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies — Interior Department, EPA, Indian Affairs, Smithsonian
- Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies — HHS (excluding Medicare/Medicaid), Department of Education, DOL; typically the most contentious non-defense bill
- Legislative Branch — Capitol operations, congressional offices, Library of Congress
- Military Construction and Veterans Affairs — VA hospitals, military base construction
- State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs — State Department, foreign aid, USAID
- Transportation, Housing and Urban Development, and Related Agencies — DOT, HUD, Amtrak
How the Process Is Supposed to Work
Each February, the President submits a budget request to Congress — a detailed proposal for how the administration would like the government funded for the coming fiscal year. This is a request, not a legal requirement Congress must follow; Congress writes its own spending bills and routinely departs from the President's numbers.
The House and Senate Appropriations Committees then each produce their own versions of the twelve bills through their respective subcommittees. Each bill goes through markup and is reported to the full chamber. Both chambers pass their versions, differences are resolved (through conference or ping-pong), and the final bills are sent to the President for signature — all before October 1.
That's the design. The reality is that partisan disagreements over spending levels, abortion riders, environmental regulations, gun policy, immigration enforcement, and dozens of other policy issues make it nearly impossible to pass all twelve bills through a divided Congress before the deadline.
What Actually Happens: CRs and Omnibus Bills
Congress's response to the breakdown of the regular process is the continuing resolution. One or more CRs keep the government funded at prior-year levels while negotiations continue. The CRs often cascade: a CR through November, another through January, another through March. At some point — sometimes during a government shutdown, sometimes just before one — Congress packages the remaining unresolved bills into a single omnibus spending bill and passes it as a year-end legislative vehicle.
The omnibus approach has significant consequences. A 2,000-page spending bill negotiated in a few days and passed by both chambers in hours leaves little time for members to read what they're voting on. Policy riders — substantive statutory changes attached to spending legislation — slip into omnibus bills that would never pass as standalone legislation. Accountability is low and speed is high.
Discretionary vs. Mandatory Spending
It's important to note that the twelve appropriations bills only cover discretionary spending — the roughly 30% of federal spending that Congress appropriates annually. The other 70% is mandatory spending: Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, and other entitlement programs that flow automatically under permanent law and don't require annual appropriations. Mandatory spending cannot be cut by failing to pass appropriations bills; it takes a separate legislative act to change it.
This distinction matters when evaluating government shutdown coverage: shutdowns only affect agencies funded through discretionary appropriations. Social Security offices process checks, Medicare pays claims, and Medicaid continues during a shutdown because those programs operate under permanent funding authority.