1. Spending against what the law allows¶
Short answer: yes, the government tracks spending against appropriations account by account, and overspending an appropriation is a crime. It does not track spending against authorizations in any accounting system; CBO's annual report on expired authorizations is the only regular comparison.
"Authorized by law" covers three different things:
| Layer | What it is | Does money move? |
|---|---|---|
| Authorization | A law that creates or continues a program and sometimes states an amount "authorized to be appropriated" | No |
| Appropriation (budget authority) | A law that lets an agency commit and pay money, for a stated purpose and period | It permits it |
| Obligation and outlay | The agency commits the money (a contract, grant or salary) and later pays it out | Yes |
The controls on appropriations¶
The Antideficiency Act. No officer or employee may make or authorize an expenditure or obligation that exceeds the amount available in an appropriation, or involve the government in a contract or obligation before an appropriation is made, unless the law allows it (31 U.S.C. 1341(a)(1)(A) and (B)). The same bar applies to exceeding an apportionment or an agency's own administrative subdivision of funds (31 U.S.C. 1517(a)). Agencies may not accept voluntary services beyond what the law authorizes, except in emergencies involving the safety of human life or the protection of property (31 U.S.C. 1342).
- Penalties. Violators are subject to administrative discipline, including suspension without pay or removal (31 U.S.C. 1349(a) and, for apportionments, 1518). A knowing and willful violation is a crime punishable by a fine of up to $5,000, up to two years in prison, or both (31 U.S.C. 1350 and 1519).
- Reporting. The agency head must report every violation immediately to the President and Congress, with a copy to the Comptroller General (31 U.S.C. 1351 and 1517(b)). GAO posts the reports and an annual compilation; it received nine reports in fiscal year 2025 and notes that its summaries rest on unaudited agency information (GAO B-337853, PDF p. 1).
Apportionment. An appropriation for a definite period must be apportioned so that it is not spent at a rate that would require a supplemental appropriation (31 U.S.C. 1512(a)), by time period, by activity, or both (1512(b)). The statute gives the job to the President (31 U.S.C. 1513(b)); it has long been delegated to OMB by executive order (CRS IN12538, p. 1; OMB Circular A-11 sec. 120.1, PDF p. 403). The form is the SF 132, Apportionment and Reapportionment Schedule (A-11, PDF p. 479). An apportionment is legally binding: obligating more than it allows violates the Antideficiency Act and must be reported (A-11, PDF p. 403).
Public apportionments. Since 2022 the law requires OMB to post every apportionment, with its footnotes, on a public website no later than two business days after approval:
| Date | Event | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Mar. 15, 2022 | Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2022 (P.L. 117-103), Div. E, sec. 204(b), requires an automated public posting system within 120 days; sec. 204(c) requires written explanations of footnotes | P.L. 117-103 |
| July 2022 | OMB begins operating the Public Apportionments Database | D.D.C. opinion, PDF p. 10 |
| Dec. 29, 2022 | P.L. 117-328, Div. E, sec. 204 makes the requirement permanent ("in fiscal year 2023 and each fiscal year thereafter") | 31 U.S.C. 1513 note; CRS IN12538 |
| on or about Mar. 24, 2025 | OMB removes the database from its website | D.D.C. opinion, PDF p. 10; CRS IN12538, p. 3 |
| Mar. 29, 2025 | OMB Director Vought tells the Appropriations Committees OMB will no longer operate the system | D.D.C. opinion, PDF p. 11 |
| Apr. 8, 2025 | GAO's General Counsel writes to OMB that apportionments are legally binding and cannot be withheld as predecisional | GAO letter, PDF p. 1 |
| July 21, 2025 | Judge Emmet G. Sullivan (D.D.C.) rules for the plaintiffs in CREW v. OMB (No. 25-1051) and Protect Democracy Project v. OMB (No. 25-1111): the defendants "are therefore required to stop violating the law" | D.D.C. opinion, PDF pp. 3, 59-60 |
| Aug. 9, 2025 | The D.C. Circuit (No. 25-5266) denies OMB a stay and dissolves its administrative stay effective Aug. 15, 2025, to give the government time to restore the database | D.C. Cir. order, PDF pp. 1-2 |
Table 1. The August 2025 edition of OMB Circular A-11 itself still states that OMB is required to post all approved apportionments on a public website (sec. 120.4, PDF p. 405). The date the database actually came back online is not established by any government document saved here; this report does not state one.
Withholding money: the Impoundment Control Act. The opposite problem, not spending what Congress provided, is governed by the Impoundment Control Act of 1974 (2 U.S.C. 681 and following). To cancel budget authority the President must send Congress a special message (2 U.S.C. 683(a)), and the money must be released unless Congress passes a rescission bill within 45 days of continuous session (683(b)). Deferrals are allowed only for contingencies, savings from changed requirements or greater efficiency, or as the law specifically provides (684(b)), and may not run past the end of the fiscal year (684(a)). GAO reviews each special message (685(b)), reports impoundments the President did not report (686(a)), and may sue to have withheld money released (687). GAO's decisions page lists 11 Impoundment Control Act decisions in 2025 (May 22 to Sept. 29), of which 7 found at least one violation (5 "Violation", 2 "Both Violation and No Violation") and 4 found none. They concern, among others, FEMA assistance, NIH grants, Head Start, the Institute of Museum and Library Services and the electric-vehicle charging program (NEVI) (GAO, Impoundment Control Act decisions pages).
Spending against authorizations¶
Congress may appropriate money for a program whose authorization has lapsed, and it does so routinely. CBO's report Expired and Expiring Authorizations of Appropriations (August 2026) found:
- 1,447 authorizations of appropriations that had expired before fiscal year 2026;
- 512 of them associated with fiscal year 2026 appropriations totaling $494 billion ($493,605 million), down about 2 percent from $502 billion in 2025;
- $309 billion, nearly two thirds, for activities whose authorizations expired more than a decade ago;
- $440 billion tied to 23 laws that are the major sources of expired authorizations;
- 308 more authorizations set to expire before the end of 2026, with specified amounts totaling $1,121 billion, mostly for defense.
Source: CBO, Expired and Expiring Authorizations of Appropriations: Fiscal Year 2026 (final report), PDF pp. 1, 3-5. cbo.gov refused automated requests from the network used for this report; the saved file is the original CBO PDF retrieved from the Internet Archive's capture of its cbo.gov address (see References).
Authorization amounts are not spending limits, and no Treasury or OMB system compares obligations with them. Mandatory spending has no annual dollar limit at all; it is paid under permanent law, and is tracked against projections rather than against an amount set in law (Section 4).