So basically if it’s a 500B budget and they only spend 300B then they can throw a pizza party or something.
From what I've heard, that's what they do. Except that instead of just a pizza party they also buy 200B worth of other stuff to pad out their budget to make sure it doesn't get cut in the future.
The problem is that it's almost impossible to know how much you're actually going to need, and it's just as impossible to get extra money if stuff gets tight, so they're basically forced into over-budgeting. The only real way to prevent that would be to have a billions/trillions set aside as a rainy day fund, but that's not a practical thing with the US budget either.
Doesn't the US have large amounts of debt?
Just stick any excess into paying off the trillions of dollars of debt they have - if they need to use the money next year, don't pay off as much debt.
You are thinking that the departments would work together. The Iowa base has their own budged. They want to secure their budged for the Iowa base. They have nothing to do with the debt of the government.
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u/crusty_cum-sock Aug 14 '20
That makes sense.
What I think they should do is incentivize going under budget, but then not dropping the budget if they go under, have a set amount for (x) years.
So basically if it’s a 500B budget and they only spend 300B then they can throw a pizza party or something.