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INTRODUCTION TO THE HISTORICAL TABLES STRUCTURE, COVERAGE, AND CONCEPTS The Historical Tables provide a wide range of data on Federal Government finances. Many of the data series begin in 1940 and include estimates from the President’s Budget for 2024–2029. Additionally, Table 1.1 provides data on receipts, outlays, and surpluses or deficits for 1901–1939 and for earlier multiyear periods. Structure The Historical Tables are organized into 16 sections, each of which has one or more tables. Each section covers a common theme. Section 1, for example, provides an overview of the budget and off-budget totals; Section 2 provides tables on receipts by source; and Section 3 shows outlays by function. When a section contains several tables, the general rule is to start with tables showing the broadest overview data and then work down to more detailed tables. The purpose of these tables is to present a broad range of historical budgetary data in one convenient reference source and to provide relevant comparisons likely to be most useful. The most common comparisons are in terms of proportions (e.g., each major receipt category as a percentage of total receipts and of the gross domestic product). Section notes explain the nature of the activities covered by the tables in each section. Additional descriptive information is also included where appropriate. Explanations are generally not repeated, but there are occasional cross-references to related materials. Because of the numerous changes in the way budget data have been presented over time, there are inevitable difficulties in trying to produce comparable data to cover many years. The general rule is to provide data in as meaningful and comparable a fashion as possible. To the extent feasible, the data are presented on a basis consistent with current budget concepts. When a structural change is made, insofar as possible the data are adjusted for all years. One significant change made in the early 1990s concerns the budgetary treatment of Federal credit programs, which was changed by the Federal Credit Reform Act of 1990. Previously the budget recorded transactions related to direct and guaranteed loans on a cash basis. Under credit reform, the budget records budget authority and outlays for the subsidy cost of direct and guaranteed loans made in 1992 and subsequent years. The subsidy is defined as the net estimated cash flows to and from the Government over the life of the loan, discounted to the present. The remaining cash transactions of credit programs are recorded as a “means of financing” the deficit. Because it is impossible to convert the pre-1992 loans to a credit reform basis, the data are on a cash basis for pre-1992 loans and on a credit reform basis for loans made in 1992 and subsequent years. In addition, as a result of the Budget Enforcement Act of 1990, the measurement of budget authority (BA) changed in most special and trust funds with legislatively imposed limitations or benefit formulas that constrain the use of BA. Where previously BA was the total income to the fund, BA in these funds for 1990 and subsequent years is now an estimate of the obligations to be incurred during the fiscal year for benefit payments, administration, and other expenses of the fund. In some, but not all, cases it was possible to adjust BA figures for these funds for years prior to 1990 to conform to the current concepts. Coverage The Federal Government has used the unified or consolidated budget concept as the foundation for its budgetary analysis and presentation since the 1969 Budget. The basic guidelines for the unified budget were presented in the Report of the President’s Commission on Budget Concepts (October 1967). The Commission recommended the budget include all Federal fiscal activities unless there were exceptionally persuasive reasons for exclusion. Nevertheless, from the very beginning some programs were perceived as warranting special treatment. For example, the Export-Import Bank was excluded by law from the budget totals beginning in the 1973 Budget, and other exclusions followed. These exclusions resulted in two new budget terms, on-budget and off-budget, to distinguish between these excluded entities and the rest of the budget. Although there is a legal distinction between on-budget and offbudget entities, there is no conceptual difference between the two. The off-budget Federal entities engage in the same kinds of governmental activities as the on-budget entities, and the programs of off-budget entities result in the same kind of outlays and receipts as on-budget entities. Like on-budget entities, off-budget entities are owned and controlled by the Government. The “unified budget” reflects the conceptual similarity between on-budget and off-budget entities by showing combined totals of outlays and receipts for both types of entities. The Balanced Budget and Emergency Deficit Control Act of 1985 (Public Law 99– 177) repealed the off-budget status of all then existing off-budget entities, but it also included a provision moving the Federal old-age, survivors, and disability insurance funds (collectively known as Social Security) off-budget. To provide a consistent time series, the historical tables show Social Security off-budget for all years since its inception, and show all formerly off-budget entities on-budget for all years. The Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1989 (OBRA 1989) moved the Postal Service fund off-budget, starting in 1989. Again to provide a consistent time series, transactions of the Postal Service fund are shown off-budget beginning with its inception in 1972. The transactions of its predecessor, the Post Office Department, remain on-budget. Though Social Security and the Postal Service are now off-budget, they continue to be Federal programs. Indeed, Social Security currently accounts for more than one-fourtth of all Federal receipts and more than one-fifth of all Federal spending. Hence, the budget documents include these funds and focus on the Federal totals that combine the on-budget and off-budget amounts. Various budget tables show total Federal receipts, outlays, and surpluses and deficits, and divide these totals between the portions that are on-budget and off-budget. Changes in Historical Budget Authority, Outlays, Receipts, and Deficits Adjustments have been made to the historical budget authority and outlay totals to reflect corrections in agency reporting provided to the Department of the Treasury. This year’s annual consultations with the Congress regarding reclassification of accounts or activities as to function or subfunction resulted in no reclassifications. Note on the Fiscal Year The Federal fiscal year begins on October 1 and ends on the subsequent September 30. It is designated by the year in which it ends; for example, fiscal year 2023 began on October 1, 2022, and ended on September 30, 2023. Prior to fiscal year 1977 the Federal fiscal years began on July 1 and ended on June 30. In calendar year 1976 the JulySeptember period was a separate accounting period (known as the transition quarter or TQ) to bridge the period required to shift to the new fiscal year. Note on Revisions to Historical GDP The Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) in the Department of Commerce completed its Comprehensive Benchmark Revisions of the National Income and Product Accounts (NIPA) data in September 2023. Such revisions generally occur every 4 or 5 years as a result of more complete data sources becoming available and from changes in concepts and definitions. As a result of these changes, the figures for Gross Domestic Product (GDP) were revised back to calendar year 2013, which changes the fiscal year GDP figures shown in this publication for 2013-2022. In addition, BEA updated the base year for calculating various deflators from calendar year 2012 to calendar year 2017. In this publication the base year was correspondingly updated from FY 2012 to FY 2017 and the tables showing constant dollar amounts and the deflators shown in Table 10.1 have been correspondingly revised. Note on Proposed Budget Enforcement Act Category Reclassifications The 2025 Budget proposes to reclassify the appropriations for the Contract Support Costs (CSCs) and Payments for Tribal Leases programs in the Department of Health and Human Services’ Indian Health Service (IHS) and the Department of the Interior's Bureau of Indian Affairs. The Budget proposes that, beginning in 2026, the CSCs and Payments for Tribal Leases accounts will continue to be funded through the annual appropriations process but will be reclassified from discretionary to mandatory funding. The Budget proposes to offset the increase in mandatory funding by reducing overall discretionary spending by amounts equal to baseline inflation of these programs. Separately, the Budget proposes to move all funding for IHS out of the annual appropriations process beginning in 2026 and reclassifies the funding as mandatory. Concepts Relevant to the Historical Tables Budget receipts constitute the income side of the budget; they are composed almost entirely of taxes or other compulsory payments to the Government. In contrast, offsetting collections and offsetting receipts result from either of two kinds of transactions: businesslike activities with the public (e.g., interest income or the sale of electric power) and the receipt by one Government account of a payment from another account. Offsetting collections and offsetting receipts are offset against outlays, so that total budget outlays are reported net of these transactions. This method of accounting permits users to easily identify the size and trends in Federal taxes and other compulsory income, and in Federal spending financed from taxes, other compulsory income, and borrowing. See the “Governmental Receipts” and “Offsetting Collections and Offsetting Receipts” chapters of the Analytical Perspectives volume for more information. The budget surplus refers to any excess of budget receipts over budget outlays, while the budget deficit refers to any excess of budget outlays over budget receipts. The terms offbudget receipts, off-budget outlays, off-budget surpluses, and off-budget deficits refer to similar categories for off-budget activities. The sum of the on-budget and off-budget transactions is referred to as the consolidated, unified, or total Federal Government transactions. The budget is divided between two fund groups, Federal funds and trust funds. The Federal funds group includes all receipts and outlays not specified by law as being trust funds. All Federal funds are on-budget except for the Postal Service fund, which is shown as off-budget starting in 1972. All trust funds are on-budget, except the two Social Security retirement and disability trust funds, which are shown off-budget for all years. See the “Trust Funds and Federal Funds” chapter of the Analytical Perspectives volume for more information. Payments for individuals are Federal Government spending programs designed to transfer income (in cash or in kind) to individuals or families. To the extent feasible, this category does not include reimbursements for current services rendered to the Government (e.g., salaries and interest). See “Notes on Section 6” below for more information. Means-Tested Entitlements are entitlement programs that limit benefits or payments based on the beneficiary’s income and/or assets and payments from refundable tax credits that are phased out at certain income levels. See “Notes on Section 8” below for more information. HISTORICAL TRENDS Because the Historical Tables publication provides a large volume and wide array of data on Federal Government finances, it is sometimes difficult to perceive the long-term patterns in various budget aggregates and components. To assist the reader in understanding some of these long-term patterns, this section provides a short summary of the trends in Federal deficits and surpluses, debt, receipts, outlays, and employment. Deficits and Debt.—As shown in Table 1.1, except for periods of war (when spending for defense increased sharply), depressions, or other economic downturns (when receipts fell precipitously), the Federal budget was generally in surplus throughout most of the Nation’s first 200 years. For our first 60 years as a Nation (through 1849), cumulative budget surpluses and deficits yielded a net surplus of $70 million. The Civil War, along with the Spanish-American War and the depression of the 1890s, resulted in a cumulative deficit totaling just under $1 billion during the 1850–1900 period. Between 1901 and 1916, the budget hovered very close to balance every year. World War I brought large deficits that totaled $23 billion over the 1917–1919 period. The budget was then in surplus throughout the 1920s. However, the combination of the Great Depression followed by World War II resulted in a long, unbroken string of deficits that were historically unprecedented in magnitude. As a result, Federal debt held by the public mushroomed from less than $3 billion in 1917 to $16 billion in 1930 and then to $242 billion by 1946. In relation to the size of the economy, debt held by the public grew from 16 percent of GDP in 1930 to 106 percent in 1946. During much of the postwar period, this same pattern persisted—large deficits were incurred only in time of war (e.g., Korea and Vietnam) or as a result of recessions. As shown in Table 1.2, prior to the 1980s, postwar deficits as a percent of GDP reached their highest during the 1975–76 recession at 4.1 percent in 1976. Debt held by the public had grown to $477 billion by 1976, but, because the economy had grown faster, debt as a percent of GDP had declined throughout the postwar period to a low of 23.2 percent in 1974. Following five years of deficits averaging only 2.4 percent of GDP between 1977 and 1981, debt held by the public stood at 25.2 percent of GDP by 1981—two percentage points higher than its postwar low. The traditional pattern of running large deficits only in times of war or economic downturns was broken during much of the 1980s. In 1982, large permanent tax cuts were enacted. Moreover, these were accompanied by substantial increases in defense spending. Although reductions were made to nondefense spending, they were not of sufficient size to offset the impact on the deficit. As a result, annual deficits averaging $206 billion were incurred between 1983 and 1992. These unprecedented peacetime deficits increased debt held by the public from $789 billion in 1981 to $3.0 trillion (46.8 percent of GDP) in 1992. After peaking at $290 billion in 1992, deficits declined each year through the 1990s, until 1998 when the Nation recorded its first budget surplus ($69.3 billion) since 1969. As a percent of GDP, the budget bottom line went from a deficit of 4.5 percent in 1992 to a surplus of 2.3 percent in 2000. An economic slowdown began in 2001. The deterioration in the performance of the economy, together with large tax reductions as well as additional spending in response to the September 11th terrorist attacks, produced a return to deficit ($158 billion, 1.5 percent of GDP) in 2002. These factors and military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan also contributed to the increase in the deficit in the following two years, reaching $413 billion (3.4 percent of GDP) in 2004. Economic growth in 2005 and 2006 produced a sharp increase in revenues, helping to reduce the deficit to $161 billion (1.1 percent of GDP) by 2007. Debt held by the public, which had peaked at 47.8 percent of GDP in 1993, fell to 31.5 percent by 2001 and rose only slightly through 2007. In December 2007, the economy fell into recession, which was significantly deepened by the financial market crisis that began in September 2008. Lower revenue, due to both tax reductions and lower economic activity; recession-induced spending for unemployment assistance and other automatic stabilizers; a large stimulus package; and increased defense spending, due partly to renewed buildups of troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, produced deficits peaking at $1,413 billion (9.8 percent of GDP) in 2009. The deficit remained above $1 trillion for three more years before falling precipitously, reaching $442 billion in 2015, partially due to a strengthening economy and the expiration of previously enacted tax reductions. The deficit began rising again in 2016 and in 2019 was $984 billion (4.6 percent of GDP). As a result of the continuing deficits throughout the 2010s, there were corresponding increases in debt held by the public from 39.2 percent of GDP in 2008 to 79.0 percent in 2019. The economic effect and Federal response to the COVID-19 public health emergency resulted in a deficit of $3,132 billion in 2020 (14.7 percent of GDP), which is the largest deficit as a share of the economy since 1945. Deficits decreased in the following years, reaching $1,694 billion (6.3 percent of GDP) in 2023. As a result of the economic effect and Federal response to the COVID-19 public health emergency, debt held by the public rose and was 97.2 percent of GDP in 2023. Receipts.—From the beginning of the Republic until the start of the Civil War, our Nation relied on customs duties to finance the activities of the Federal Government. During the 19th Century, sales of public lands supplemented customs duties. While large amounts were occasionally obtained from the sale of lands, customs duties accounted for over 90 percent of Federal receipts in most years prior to the Civil War. Excise taxes became an important and growing source of Federal receipts starting in the 1860s. Estate and gift taxes were levied and collected sporadically from the 1860s through World War I, although never amounting to a significant source of receipts during that time. Prior to 1913, income taxes did not exist or were inconsequential, other than for a brief time during the Civil War period, when special tax legislation raised the income tax share of Federal receipts to as much as 13 percent in 1866. Subsequent to the enactment of income tax legislation in 1913, these taxes grew in importance as a source of Federal receipts during the following decade. By 1930, the Federal Government was relying on income taxes for 60 percent of its receipts, while customs duties and excise taxes each accounted for 15 percent of the receipts total. During the 1930s, total Federal receipts averaged about 5 percent of GDP. World War II brought a dramatic increase in receipts, with Federal receipts peaking at 20.5 percent of GDP in 1944. The percentage declined in the early post-war years to 14.2 by 1950 and then fluctuated within a range of 15-20 percent of GDP for the next nearly 60 years. The deepening recession and tax reductions enacted in 2009 to help revive the economy reduced receipts as a percent of GDP to 14.5 in both 2009 and 2010, the lowest since 1950. By 2012, receipts increased to within the historical post-World War II range and have remained there since. Receipts were 16.5 percent of GDP in 2023. There have also been some significant shifts during the postwar period in the underlying sources or composition of receipts. The increase in taxes needed to support the war effort in the 1940s saw total (corporate and individual) income taxes rise to prominence as a source of Federal receipts, reaching 79 percent of total receipts in 1944. After the war, the total income tax share of receipts fell from a postwar high of 74 percent in 1952 to an average of 64 percent in the late 1960s. The growth in social insurance taxes (such as Social Security and Medicare) more than offset a postwar secular decline in excise and other nonincome tax shares. The combination of substantial reductions in income taxes enacted in the early 1980s and the continued growth in social insurance taxes resulted in a continued decline in the total income tax share of receipts. By 1983 the total income tax share had dropped to 54 percent of receipts, and it ranged from 52 percent to 60 percent through 2007. As a result of the recession and tax reductions enacted as part of the stimulus packages in February 2008 and again in the spring of 2009, the total income tax share dropped to 50 percent in 2009 and 2010, before bouncing back to an average of 57 percent between 20112022. In 2023, the total income tax share of receipts was 58 percent. Corporation income taxes accounted for a large part of this postwar decline in total income tax share, falling from over 30 percent of total Federal receipts in the early 1950s to 19 percent in 1968. During the same period, pretax corporate profits fell from about 13 percent of GDP in the early 1950s to 11 percent in 1968. By 1980 the corporation income tax share of total receipts had dropped to 12.5 percent. Pretax corporate profits also declined as a percent of GDP during the 1980s and, thus, the corporation income tax share of total receipts dropped to a low of 6.2 percent in 1983. By 1996, the share of corporation income taxes had climbed back to 11.8 percent. But, between 2001 and 2003, it averaged 7.7 percent, well below the 1980 share, before increasing to 14.7 percent by 2006. The December 2007 recession reduced the corporation income tax share of total receipts to just 6.6 percent in 2009. In 2010, the share rose to 8.9 percent and remained relatively steady. After enactment of tax reform in 2018, corporate receipts declined to 6.1 percent of total receipts in 2018but increased in subsequent years. The postwar drop in corporation income taxes as a share of total receipts has been more than offset by the growth in social insurance taxes and retirement receipts, as both tax rates and the percentage of the workforce covered by these payroll taxes increased. This category of receipts increased from only 8 percent of total receipts during the mid-1940s to 38 percent by 1992. It remained between 30 and 42 percent through 2022, with increases in the relative share of social insurance and retirement receipts coming at the expense of decreases in the relative share of income taxes (individual and corporate). In 2023, social insurance taxes and retirement receipts were 36 percent of total receipts. Excise taxes also declined in relative importance during the postwar period, falling from a 19 percent share of total receipts in 1950 to 3 percent by 1990 and remaining relatively stable through 2019 before decreasing. Excise taxes comprised 2 percent of total receipts in 2023. Outlays and Executive Branch Civilian Employment.—Throughout most of the Nation’s history prior to the 1930s, the bulk of Federal spending went towards national defense, veterans’ benefits, and interest on the public debt. In 1929, for example, 71 percent of Federal outlays were in these three categories. The 1930s began with Federal outlays equaling just 3.4 percent of GDP. As shown in Table 1.2, the efforts to fight the Great Depression with public works and other nondefense Federal spending, when combined with the depressed GDP levels, caused outlays and their share of GDP to increase steadily during most of that decade, with outlays rising to 10.1 percent of GDP by 1939 and to 11.7 percent by 1941 on the eve of U.S. involvement in World War II. Defense spending during World War II resulted in outlays as a percent of GDP rising sharply, to a peak of 42.7 percent by 1944. The end of the war brought total spending down to 14.0 percent of GDP by 1949, but the Korean War increased spending to 19.9 percent of GDP by 1953. Outlays as a percent of GDP dropped after the Korean War and stayed between 16.1 and 18.3 percent until U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War escalated sharply in the middle 1960s and remained high into the early 1970s. From 1967 through 1972, Federal outlays averaged 19.0 percent of GDP, with a peak occurring in 1968 at 19.8 percent of GDP. The decline in defense spending as a percent of GDP that began in 1973, as the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Vietnam was nearing completion, was more than offset by increased spending on human resources programs during the 1970s. The increase in human resources programs was due to the maturation of the Social Security program; increases in education and training, general and Federal employee retirement, and other income support programs, such as food stamps and unemployment assistance; as well as a takeoff in spending on the recently enacted Great Society programs, such as Medicare and Medicaid. As a result, total spending increased as a percent of GDP, averaging 19.4 percent during the 1970s. Outlays as a percent of GDP reached 21.2 percent in 1980 and remained above 20 percent of GDP until 1996. A number of different factors contributed to this rise, including substantially increased defense spending through the 1980s, continued growth in human resource spending throughout this period, and large tax cuts and a deep recession (which increased deficits and therefore spending for interest on the public debt). Outlays as a percent of GDP fell below 20 percent of GDP in 1996 and continued to decline, falling to a low of 17.7 percent in both 2000 and 2001. The outlay share of GDP rose throughout the 2000s, first due, in part, to the increase in defense and homeland security spending in response to the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, and in part to the weak growth of GDP resulting from the 2001 recession. Spending remained elevated through the middle half of the decade due, in part, to increased spending on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as the response to the devastating hurricanes that struck States along the Gulf Coast in late summer 2005. Spending reached a post-World War II high of 24.3 percent of GDP in 2009 as a result of both the recession and spending associated with the first stages of a Federal effort to restore financial markets to full functionality. Outlays as a percent of GDP fell to 20.7 percent in 2013 and remained relatively stable until 2020, when the economic effects and Federal response to the COVID-19 public health emergency increased outlays to 30.8 percent of GDP, the highest level since 1945. Outlays in 2023 were 22.7 percent of GDP. Despite the growth in total Federal spending as a percent of GDP in recent decades, Executive Branch (full-time equivalent) civilian employment, as shown in Table 16.1, has remained roughly constant, ranging from 1.7 to 2.2 million civilian employees (excluding the Postal Service) since 1981. However, the composition of employment has shifted significantly between defense and civilian agencies during the postwar period, especially since the mid1980s. In 1986, for example, the 2.1 million total for civilian employees was split equally between defense and the civilian agencies, with each accounting for 1 million employees. During the 1990s and up through the current decade there has been a shift away from defense to civilian agency employment. In recent years, civilian agency employment has been nearly twice that of the Department of Defense, accounting for 1.5 million of the 2.2 million total in 2023. Although total spending has increased substantially as a percent of GDP since the 1950s, the growth in the various components of spending has not been even and, thus, the composition of spending has changed significantly during the same period. Outlays for discretionary programs (whose funding levels are determined by annual appropriations) totaled 12.3 percent of GDP in 1962, with nearly three-fourths going to defense. Discretionary spending for defense programs increased during the Vietnam War buildup in the late 1960s, causing total discretionary outlays to rise to 13.1 percent of GDP by 1968, after which a gradual decline began. By the middle 1970s, this category had dropped to slightly less than 10 percent of GDP and it generally stayed at that level until the late 1980s, when the defense buildup that started early in that decade came to an end. Discretionary spending, as a percent of GDP, fell substantially over the late 1980s and throughout the 1990s, from 9.3 percent in 1987 to 6.0 percent in 1999. Over the following decade, discretionary spending increased. This growth began in 2002 and 2003, in response to the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and the initiation of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and continued in response to the Gulf Coast hurricanes in September 2005. The recession that began in December 2007 caused GDP to drop from 2008 to 2009 and, in conjunction with additional program spending, increased discretionary spending to 9.1 percent of GDP by 2010. Discretionary outlays have fallen in the years since, in part due to the caps on discretionary spending instituted as part of the Budget Control Act of 2011, and averaged 6.3 percent of GDP from 2015-2019, before rising slightly to 7.6 percent of GDP in 2020, largely due to the economic effect and Federal response to the COVID-19 public health emergency. Discretionary outlays were 6.4 percent of GDP in 2023. While total discretionary spending as a percent of GDP has generally followed a downward path over most of the past 50 years, its major components—defense and nondefense—have contrasting histories. As shown in Table 8.4, discretionary defense spending was at 9.0 percent of GDP in 1962. By 1965, spending in this category had declined to 7.2 percent of GDP. It then increased as a result of the Vietnam War, peaking at 9.2 percent of GDP in 1968, returning to the 1965 level by 1971. This decline continued throughout the 1970s, hitting a low point in that decade of 4.6 percent of GDP in 1978 and 1979. The defense buildup starting in the early 1980s boosted its percentage of GDP back to 6.0 percent by 1986, after which it again began a gradual decline throughout the rest of that decade and the next. By 1999, defense discretionary spending had fallen to 2.9 percent of GDP, reflecting the end of the Cold War and the above-average economic growth during much of the 1990s. Spending in response to the September 11, 2001, attacks, followed by the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, reversed this decline, with defense discretionary spending growing over the decade and (due in part to the drop in GDP) peaking at 4.6 percent of GDP in 2010. Defense discretionary spending has declined in the years since, to 3.0 percent of GDP in 2023, in part due to the caps on discretionary spending instituted as part of the Budget Control Act of 2011. Nondefense discretionary spending as a percent of GDP has followed a much different path. In 1962, it stood at 3.3 percent of GDP. During the next few years it quickly increased, reaching 4.1 percent of GDP by 1967. It dropped slightly after that year, but still averaged about 3.8 percent of GDP until 1975, when it grew to 4.4 percent of GDP due, in part, to the recession and partly due to growth in spending on energy, the environment, and housing and other income support programs. Much of this growth was in the form of Federal grants to State and local governments. Additional spending arose from the creation of various antirecession grants at the end of the decade. Nondefense discretionary outlays peaked as a percent of GDP during the recession in 1980 at 5.1 percent. This category declined sharply as a percent of GDP starting in 1982, and then remained relatively steady for the next 25 years, averaging 3.5 percent during 1983–2008. The effects of the deepening recession and the anti-recession stimulus spending enacted in the spring of 2009 combined to increase the nondefense discretionary spending to 4.4 percent of GDP in 2010, before dropping in the subsequent years and leveling off at 3.1 percent between 2017 and 2019, the same as the percentage in 1962. Nondefense discretionary spending rose to 4.3 percent of GDP in 2020 due to the economic effect and Federal response to the COVID-19 public health emergency. In 2023, nondefense discretionary spending was 3.4 percent of GDP. Programmatic mandatory spending (which excludes net interest and undistributed offsetting receipts) accounts for the largest part of the growth in total Federal spending as a percent of GDP since the 1950s. Major programs in this category include Social Security, Medicare, unemployment compensation, deposit insurance, and means-tested entitlements (Medicaid, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), Supplemental Security Income, the refundable portions of a variety of tax credits, including the Earned Income and Child Tax Credits, and other programs subject to an income or asset test). Prior to the start of Medicare and Medicaid in 1966, programmatic mandatory spending averaged 5.5 percent of GDP between 1962 and 1965 (less than half the size of total discretionary spending), with Social Security accounting for nearly half. Within a decade, this category was comparable in size to total discretionary spending, nearly doubling as a percent of GDP to 10.3 percent by 1975 and remained between 9.3 percent of GDP and 11.4 percent of GDP for the next 30 years. Although part of the growth from 1966 to 1976 represented the impact of the 1975–76 recession on GDP levels and on outlays for unemployment compensation (unemployment compensation accounted for 1.1 percent of GDP in 1976) and other programs sensitive to unemployment, the largest part of the increase was due to Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. These three programs totaled 3.3 percent of GDP in 1968 and grew rapidly to 5.4 percent of GDP by 1976. By 1985, they reached 6.4 percent of GDP. Social Security stabilized as a percent of GDP during 1984–2008, ranging from 4.0 percent to 4.5 percent, and has increased slightly since then, and was 5.0 percent of GDP in 2023. However, the growth in other programmatic mandatory spending continued to outpace the growth in GDP through this period (apart from recession recovery periods) due to Medicare and Medicaid. These two programs, which were 1.2 percent of GDP in 1975, have more than quadrupled as a percent of GDP since then, reaching 5.4 percent in 2023. Spending for means-tested entitlements other than Medicaid was at 1.2 percent of GDP in 2007, the same as it had been thirty years before (1.2 percent), in 1977. The impact of the 2007 recession helped increase this percentage to 2.0 percent by 2011, before the percentage decreased slightly to 1.6 percent of GDP by 2018. This category increased to 4.6 percent of GDP in 2021 due to the Federal response to the COVID-19 public health emergency and was 1.9 percent of GDP in 2023. By way of contrast, programmatic mandatory spending other than Social Security, Medicare, and means-tested entitlements (which includes Medicaid) had shrunk nearly in half as a percent of GDP between 1975 and 2008, falling from 3.9 percent in 1975 to 1.8 percent by 1993, and remaining relatively stable through 2008. (Major programs in this grouping include unemployment compensation, deposit insurance, Federal military and civilian employee and railroad retirement, farm price supports, and veterans’ compensation and readjustment benefits.) However, the large assistance provided to the financial sector in response to the financial crisis in the fall of 2008, along with the drop in GDP associated with the severe recession, caused this percentage to more than double in 2009, when it reached 4.1 percent of GDP, before dropping back to 1.9 percent of GDP in 2010. It remained relatively stable until 2020, when it reached an unprecedented 8.1 percent of GDP due to the Federal response to the COVID-19 public health emergency. In 2023, this category was 2.1 percent of GDP. The assistance to the financial sector in the fall of 2008, along with the effects of the deepening recession, anti-recession spending enacted in the spring of 2009, and the spending from automatic stabilizers, such as unemployment assistance and other cyclically sensitive mandatory programs, combined to increase outlays for the entire programmatic mandatory category to 15.1 percent of GDP in 2009. This category decreased slightly over the following decade and was 13.3 percent of GDP in 2019. In 2020, programmatic mandatory spending reached 22.0 percent of GDP due to the economic effect and Federal response to the COVID19 public health emergency and was 14.4 percent of GDP in 2023. By way of comparison, total discretionary spending in 2023 was 6.4 percent of GDP. Additional perspectives on spending trends available in this document include spending by agency, by function and subfunction, and by composition of outlays categories, which include payments for individuals and grants to State and local governments. SECTION NOTES Notes on Section 1 (Overview of Federal Government Finances) This section provides an overall perspective on total receipts, outlays (spending), and surpluses or deficits. Off-budget transactions, which consist of the Social Security trust funds and the Postal Service fund, and on-budget transactions, which equal the total minus the off-budget transactions, are shown separately. Tables 1.1 and 1.2 have similar structures; 1.1 shows the data in millions of dollars, while 1.2 shows the same data as percentages of the gross domestic product (GDP). For all the tables using GDP, fiscal year GDP is used to calculate percentages of GDP. The fiscal year GDP data are shown in Table 1.2. Additionally, Table 1.1 shows budget totals annually back to 1901 and for multi-year periods back to 1789. Table 1.3 shows total Federal receipts, outlays, and surpluses or deficits in current and constant (Fiscal Year 2017) dollars, and as percentages of GDP. Section 6 provides a disaggregation of the constant dollar outlays. Table 1.4 shows receipts, outlays, and surpluses or deficits for the consolidated budget by fund group. The budget is composed of two principal fund groups—Federal funds and trust funds. Normally, whenever data are shown by fund group, any payments from programs in one fund group to accounts of the other are shown as outlays of the paying fund and receipts of the collecting fund. When the two fund groups are aggregated to arrive at budget totals these interfund transactions are deducted from both receipts and outlays in order to arrive at transactions with the public. Table 1.4 displays receipts and outlays on a gross basis. That is, in contrast to normal budget practice, collections of interfund payments are included in the receipts totals rather than as offsets to outlays. These interfund collections are grossed-up to more closely approximate cash income and outgo of the fund groups. Notes on Section 2 (Composition of Federal Government Receipts) Section 2 provides historical information on on-budget and off-budget governmental receipts. Table 2.1 shows total receipts divided into five major categories; it also shows the split between on-budget and off-budget receipts. Table 2.2 shows the receipts by major category as percentages of total receipts, while Table 2.3 shows the same categories of receipts as percentages of GDP. Table 2.4 disaggregates two of the major receipts categories, social insurance and retirement receipts and excise taxes, and Table 2.5 disaggregates the ‘‘other receipts’’ category. While the focus of the section is on total Federal receipts, auxiliary data show the amounts of trust fund receipts in each category, so it is readily possible to distinguish the Federal fund and trust fund portions. Notes on Section 3 (Federal Government Outlays by Function) Section 3 displays Federal Government outlays (on-budget and off-budget) according to their functional classification. The functional structure divides the budget into 18 broad areas (functions) that provide a coherent and comprehensive basis for analysis. Each function, in turn, is divided into basic groupings of programs, called subfunctions. The structure has two categories—allowances and undistributed offsetting receipts—that are not truly functions but are required in order to cover the entire budget. Allowances are used to categorize amounts in estimated years that cannot yet be allocated to individual functions. Undistributed offsetting receipts are offsetting receipts that are not offset against outlays for any specific agency or programmatic function. In arraying data on a functional basis, budget authority and outlays are classified according to the primary purpose of the activity. To the extent feasible, this classification is made without regard to agency or organizational distinctions. Classifying each activity solely in the function defining its most important purpose—even though many activities serve more than one purpose— permits adding the budget authority and outlays of each function to obtain the budget totals. For example, Federal spending for Medicaid constitutes a health care program, but it also constitutes a form of income security benefits. However, the spending cannot be counted in both functions; since the main purpose of Medicaid is to finance the health care of the beneficiaries, this program is classified in the ‘‘health’’ function. Section 3 provides data on budget outlays by function, while Section 5 provides comparable data on budget authority. At times a more summary presentation of functional data is needed; the data are arrayed by ‘‘superfunction’’ to satisfy this need. Table 3.1 provides outlays by superfunction and function while Table 3.2 shows outlays by function and subfunction. Notes on Section 4 (Federal Government Outlays by Agency) Section 4 displays Federal Government outlays (on- and off-budget) by agency. Table 4.1 shows the dollar amounts of such outlays and Table 4.2 shows the percentage distribution. The outlays by agency are based on the agency structure currently in effect. For example, the Department of Homeland Security was established by legislation enacted in 2002. However, these data show spending by the Department of Homeland Security in previous years that consists of spending attributable to predecessor agencies in earlier years, but now attributable to the Department of Homeland Security. Notes on Section 5 (Budget Authority by Agency and by Subfunction) Section 5 provides data on budget authority (BA). BA is the authority provided by law for agencies to obligate the Government to spend. Table 5.1 shows BA by function and subfunction, starting with 1976. Table 5.2 provides the same information by agency, and Table 5.3 provides a percentage distribution of BA by agency. Tables 5.4 and 5.5 provide the same displays as Tables 5.2 and 5.3, but for discretionary budget authority rather than total budget authority. Budget authority data are also provided by function in Table 5.6 for various discretionary program groupings. (Discretionary refers to the Budget Enforcement Act category that comprises programs subject to the annual appropriations process. See the “Budget Concepts” chapter of the Analytical Perspectives volume for more information.) The data in these tables were compiled using the same methods used for the historical tables for receipts and outlays (e.g., to the extent feasible, changes in classification are reflected retroactively so the data show the same stream of transactions in the same location for all years). However, BA is heterogeneous in nature, varying in type from one program to another. As a result, it is not strictly additive—either across programs or agencies for a year or, in many cases, for an agency or program across a series of years—in the same sense that budget receipts and budget outlays are additive. The following are examples of different kinds of BA and the manner in which BA results in outlays: BA and outlays for each year may be exactly the same (e.g., interest on the public debt). For each year, the Congress may appropriate a large quantity of BA that will be spent over a subsequent period of years (e.g., many defense procurement contracts and major construction programs). Some BA (e.g., the salaries and expenses of an operating agency) is made available only for a year and any portion not obligated during that year lapses (i.e., it ceases to be available to be obligated). Revolving funds may operate spending programs indefinitely with no new infusion of BA, other than the authority to spend offsetting collections. BA may be enacted with the expectation it is unlikely ever to be used (e.g., standby borrowing authority). As noted in the Introduction above, beginning in 1990, BA in most special and trust funds with legislatively imposed limitations or benefit formulas that constrain the use of BA is an estimate of the obligations to be incurred during the fiscal year for benefit payments, administration, and other expenses of the fund. In some, but not all, cases it was possible to adjust BA figures for these funds for years prior to 1990 to conform to the current concepts. All income to a fund (e.g., certain revolving, special, and trust funds not subject to limitation or benefit formula) may be permanently appropriated as BA; as long as the fund has adequate resources, there is no further relationship between the BA and outlays. Although major changes in the way BA is measured for credit programs (beginning in 1992) result from the Federal Credit Reform Act, these tables could not be reconstructed to show revised BA figures for 1991 and prior years on the new basis. (This distinction between pre-1992 credit transactions and later ones also exists for outlays, which otherwise do not suffer from differences in type.) In its earliest years, the Federal Financing Bank (FFB) was conducted as a revolving fund, making direct loans to the public or purchasing loan assets from other funds or accounts. Each new loan by the FFB required new BA. In many cases, if the same loan were made by the account being serviced by the FFB, the loan could be financed from offsetting collections and no new BA would be recorded. Under terms of the 1985 legislation moving the FFB onbudget, the FFB ceased to make direct loans to the public. Instead, it makes loans to the accounts it services, and these accounts, in turn, make the loans to the public. Such loans could be made from new BA or other obligational authority available to the parent account. These tables have not been reconstructed to shift BA previously scored in the FFB to the parent accounts, because there is no technical way to reconfigure the data. Despite these qualifications, there is a desire for historical data on BA, and this section has been developed to meet that desire. Notes on Section 6 (Composition of Federal Government Outlays) The ‘‘composition’’ categories in this section divide total outlays into national defense and nondefense components, and then disaggregate the nondefense spending into several parts: Payments for individuals: These are Federal Government spending programs designed to transfer income (in cash or in kind) to individuals or families. To the extent feasible, this category does not include reimbursements for current services rendered to the Government (e.g., salaries and interest). The payments may be in the form of cash paid directly to individuals or they may take the form of the provision of services or the payment of bills for activities generally financed from personal income. They include outlays for the provision of medical care (in veterans’ hospitals, for example) and for the payment of medical bills (e.g., Medicare). They also include subsidies to reduce the cost of housing below market rates and food and nutrition assistance (such as SNAP – formerly food stamps). The data base, while not precise, provides a reasonable perspective of the size and composition of income support transfers within any particular year and trends over time. Section 11 disaggregates the components of this category. The data in Section 6 show a significant amount of payments for individuals takes the form of grants to State and local governments to finance benefits for the ultimate recipients. These grants include Medicaid, some food and nutrition assistance, and a significant portion of the housing assistance payments. Sections 11 and 12 provide a more detailed disaggregation of this spending. All other grants to State and local governments: This category consists of the Federal nondefense grants to State and local governments other than grants defined as payments for individuals. Section 12 disaggregates this spending. Net interest: Most spending for net interest is paid to the public as interest on the Federal debt. As shown in Table 3.2, net interest includes, as an offset, significant amounts of interest income. Spending in this category is equal to net outlays in the budget function of the same name. All other: This category consists of all remaining Federal spending and offsetting receipts except for those included in the functional category ‘‘undistributed offsetting receipts.’’ It includes most Federal loan activities and most Federal spending for foreign assistance, farm price supports, medical and other scientific research, and, in general, Federal direct program operations. Undistributed offsetting receipts: These are offsetting receipts that are not offset against any specific agency or programmatic function. They are classified as function 950 in the functional tables. Additional details on their composition can be found at the end of Table 3.2. Table 6.1 shows these outlays in current and constant dollars, the percentage distribution of current dollar outlays, and the current dollar outlays as percentages of GDP. The term ‘‘constant dollars’’ means the amounts of money that would have had to be spent in each year if, on average, the unit cost of everything purchased within that category each year (including purchases financed by income transfers, interest, etc.) were the same as in the base year (Fiscal Year 2017). The adjustments to constant dollars are made by applying a series of chain-weighted price indexes to the current dollar data base. The composite total outlays deflator is used to deflate current dollar receipts to produce the constant dollar receipts in Table 1.3. The separate composite deflators used for the various outlay categories are shown in Table 10.1. Notes on Section 7 (Federal Debt) This section provides information about Federal debt. Table 7.1 contains data on gross Federal debt and its major components in terms of both the amount of debt outstanding at the end of each year and that amount as a percentage of fiscal year GDP. Gross Federal debt is composed both of Federal debt held (owned) by the public and Federal debt held by Federal Government accounts, which is mostly held by trust funds. Federal debt held by the public consists of all Federal debt held outside the Federal Government accounts. For example, it includes debt held by individuals, private banks and insurance companies, the Federal Reserve Banks, and foreign central banks. The sale (or repayment) of Federal debt to the public is the principal means of financing a Federal budget deficit (or disposing of a Federal budget surplus). Table 7.1 divides debt held by the public between the amount held by the Federal Reserve Banks and the remainder. The Federal Reserve System is the central bank for the Nation. Their holdings of Federal debt are shown separately because they do not have the same impact on private credit markets as does other debt held by the public. They accumulate Federal debt as a result of their role as the country’s central bank, and the size of these holdings has a major impact on the Nation’s money supply. Since the Federal budget does not forecast Federal Reserve monetary policy, it does not project future changes in the amounts of Federal debt that will be held by the Federal Reserve Banks. Hence, the split of debt held by the public into that portion held by the Federal Reserve Banks and the remainder is provided only for past years. Table 2.5 shows deposits of earnings by the Federal Reserve System. Most interest paid by Treasury on debt held by the Federal Reserve Banks is returned to the Treasury as deposits of earnings, which are recorded as budget receipts. As a result of a conceptual revision in the quantification of Federal debt, the data on debt held by the public and gross Federal debt—but only a small part of debt held by Government accounts—were revised back to 1956 in the 1990 Budget. The total revision was relatively small—a change of less than one percent of the recorded value of the debt—but the revised basis is more consistent with the quantification of interest outlays, and provides a more meaningful measure of Federal debt. The change converted most debt held by the public from the par value to the sales price plus amortized discount. Most debt held by Government accounts is issued at par, and securities issued at a premium or discount were formerly recorded at par. That portion of debt held by Government accounts that was not revised back to 1956 in the 1990 Budget was first recorded with an adjustment for any initial discount starting with debt issued in 1989. Zerocoupon bonds, however, are recorded at estimated market or redemption price. Table 7.2 shows the end-of-year amounts of Federal debt subject to the general statutory limitation. It is recorded at par value (except for savings bonds) through 1988, but by law the basis was changed, in part, to accrual value for later years. Before World War I, each debt issue by the Government required specific authorization by the Congress. Starting in 1917, the nature of this limitation was modified in several steps until it developed into a limit on the total amount of Federal debt outstanding. The Treasury is free to borrow whatever amounts are needed up to the debt limit, which is changed from time to time to meet new requirements. Table 7.3 shows the ceiling at each point in time since 1940. It provides the specific legal citation, a short description of the change, and the amount of the limit specified by each Act. Most, but not all, of gross Federal debt is subject to the statutory limit. See the “Federal Borrowing and Debt” chapter of the Analytical Perspectives volume for more information. Notes on Section 8 (Outlays by Budget Enforcement Act Category and Budget Authority for Discretionary Programs) Section 8 is composed of eight tables that present outlays by the major categories used under the Budget Enforcement Act (BEA) and under previous budget agreements between the Congress and previous Administrations. Table 8.1 shows Federal outlays within each of the categories and subcategories. The principal categories are outlays for mandatory and related programs and outlays for discretionary programs. (Discretionary budget authority is shown in Section 5; on an agency basis in Table 5.4 and Table 5.5 and on a functional basis in Table 5.6.) Mandatory and related programs include direct spending and offsetting receipts whose budget authority is determined by law other than appropriations acts. These include appropriated entitlements and SNAP (formerly the food stamp program). Discretionary programs are those whose budgetary resources (other than entitlement authority) are determined by annual appropriations acts. The table shows two major categories of discretionary programs: National Defense (Function 050) and Nondefense (all other discretionary programs). Table 8.2 has the same structure, but shows the data in constant (FY 2017) dollars. Table 8.3 shows the percentage distribution of outlays by BEA category and Table 8.4 shows outlays by BEA category as a percentage of GDP. Tables 8.1 through 8.4 include a category called Other Means-Tested Entitlements. Means-tested entitlement programs include Medicaid and a number of other programs that limit benefits or payments based on the beneficiary’s income and/or assets. Also included in this category are payments from refundable tax credits that are phased out at certain income (generally, Adjusted Gross Income) levels. The programs currently categorized as Means-Tested Entitlements are: Funds for Strengthening Markets, Income, and Supply (section 32) SNAP (formerly the Food Stamp Program), including nutrition assistance for Puerto Rico Child Nutrition Programs, including the special milk program Student Financial Assistance (mostly Pell Grants) Grants to States for Medicaid Children's Health Insurance Program Child Enrollment Contingency Fund Payments to States for Child Support Enforcement and Family Support Programs Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) TANF Contingency Fund Payment Where Adoption Credit Exceeds Liability for Tax Payments to States for Foster Care and Adoption Assistance Child Care Entitlement to States Payment Where Recovery Rebate Exceeds Liability for Tax Payment Where Earned Income Credit Exceeds Liability for Tax Health insurance supplement to earned income credit Payment Where Child Credit Exceeds Liability for Tax Payment Where Credit to Aid First-Time Homebuyers Exceeds Liability for Tax Payment Where American Opportunity Credit Exceeds Liability for Tax Payment Where Making Work Pay Credit Exceeds Liability for Tax Supplemental Security Income Program (SSI) Recovery of Beneficiary Overpayments from SSI Program Veterans’ Pensions benefits Refundable Premium Tax Credit and Cost Sharing Reductions Cost Sharing Reductions Payment Where COBRA Credit Exceeds Liability for Tax U.S. Coronavirus Payments U.S. Coronavirus Refundable Credits Child and Dependent Care Tax Credit Payment Where Adoption Credit Exceeds Liability for Tax Affordable Child Care for America Table 8.5 provides additional detail by function or subfunction for mandatory and related programs. Table 8.6 shows the same data in constant dollars. Table 8.7 provides additional detail by function and subfunction on outlays for discretionary programs. Table 8.8 provides the same data in constant dollars. Notes on Section 9 (Federal Government Outlays for Major Physical Capital, Research and Development, and Education and Training) Tables in this section provide a broad perspective on Federal Government outlays for investment in public physical capital, the conduct of research and development (R&D), and education and training. These data measure new Federal spending for major public physical assets, but they exclude major commodity inventories. In some cases it was necessary to use supplementary data sources to estimate missing data in order to develop a consistent historical data series. The data for the conduct of research and development exclude outlays for construction and major equipment because such spending is included in outlays for physical capital. See the “Federal Investment” and “Research and Development” chapters of the Analytical Perspectives volume for more information. Table 9.1 shows total investment outlays for major public physical capital, R&D, and education and training in current and constant (FY 2017) dollars, and shows the percentage distribution of outlays and outlays as a percentage of GDP. Table 9.2 focuses on direct Federal outlays and grants for major public physical capital investment in current and constant (FY 2017) dollars, disaggregating direct Federal outlays into national defense and nondefense capital investment. Table 9.3 retains the same structure as 9.2, but shows direct Federal outlay totals for physical capital investment as percentages of total outlays and as percentages of GDP. Table 9.4 disaggregates national defense direct outlays, while Table 9.5 disaggregates nondefense outlays for major public physical capital investment. Table 9.6 shows the composition of grant outlays for major public physical capital investment. Table 9.7 provides an overall perspective on Federal Government outlays for the conduct of R&D. It shows total R&D spending and the split between national defense and nondefense spending in four forms: in current dollars, in constant dollars, as percentages of total outlays, and as percentages of GDP. Table 9.8 shows outlays in current dollars by major function and program. Table 9.9 shows outlays for the conduct of education and training in current dollars for direct Federal programs and for grants to State and local governments. Total outlays for the conduct of education and training as a percentage of Federal outlays and in constant (FY 2017) dollars are also shown. As with the series on physical capital, several budget data sources have been used to develop a consistent data series extending back to 1962. A discontinuity occurs between 1991 and 1992 and affects primarily direct Federal higher education outlays. For 1991 and earlier, these data include net loan disbursements, repayments, and other transactions on a cash basis. Beginning in 1992, pursuant to changes in the treatment of loans as specified in the Federal Credit Reform Act of 1990, this series includes outlays for loan repayments and defaults for loans originated in 1991 and earlier, but credit subsidy outlays for loans originated in 1992 and later years. Table 9.9 also excludes education and training outlays for physical capital (which are included in Table 9.7) and education and training outlays for the conduct of research and development (which are in Table 9.8). Also excluded are education and training programs for Federal civilian and military personnel. Notes on Section 10 (Implicit Outlay Deflators) Section 10 consists of Table 10.1, Gross Domestic Product and Deflators Used in the Historical Tables, which shows the various implicit deflators used to convert current dollar outlays to constant dollars. The constant dollar deflators are based on chain-weighted (FY 2017 chained-dollars) price indexes derived from the National Income and Product Accounts data. Notes on Section 11 (Federal Government Payments for Individuals) This section provides detail on outlays for Federal Government payments for individuals, which are also described in the notes on Section 6. The basic purpose of the payments for individuals aggregation is to provide a broad perspective on Federal cash or in-kind payments for which no current service is rendered, yet which constitutes income transfers to individuals and families. Table 11.1 provides an overview display of these data in four different forms. All four of these displays show the total payments for individuals, and the split of this total between grants to State and local governments for payments for individuals (such as Medicaid and grants for housing assistance) and all other (‘‘direct’’) payments for individuals. Table 11.2 shows the functional composition of payments for individuals (see notes on Section 3 for a description of the functional classification), and includes the same grants versus nongrants (‘‘direct’’) split provided in Table 11.1. The off-budget Social Security program finances a significant portion of the Federal payments for individuals. These tables do not distinguish between the on-budget and off-budget payments for individuals. However, all payments for individuals shown in Table 11.2 in function 650 (Social Security), except for minor payment amounts associated with the 2009 Recovery Act (ARRA), are off-budget outlays, and all other payments for individuals are on-budget. Table 11.3 displays the payments for individuals by major program category. Notes on Section 12 (Federal Grants To State and Local Governments) For many decades the Federal budget documents have provided data on Federal grants to State and local governments. The purpose of these data is to identify Federal Government outlays that constitute income to State and local governments to help finance their services and their income transfers (payments for individuals) to the public. Grants generally exclude Federal Government payments for services rendered directly to the Federal Government; for example, they exclude most Federal Government payments for research and development, and they exclude payments to State social service agencies for screening disability insurance beneficiaries for the Federal disability insurance trust fund. Table 12.1 provides an overall perspective on grants; its structure is similar to the structure of Table 11.1. Table 12.2 displays Federal grants by function (see notes on Section 3 for a description of the functional classification). The bulk of Federal grants are included in the Federal funds group. However, since the creation of the highway trust fund in 1957, significant amounts of grants have been financed from trust funds. All Federal grants are on-budget, except for small amounts from 2000-2023 in the Federal Disability Insurance Trust Fund, which is off-budget. Wherever trust fund outlays are included in those data, Table 12.2 not only identifies the total grants by function but also shows the split between Federal funds and trust funds. See “Concepts Relevant to the Historical Tables” above for more information on Federal funds and trust funds. Table 12.3 provides data on grants at the account or program level, with an identification of the function, agency, and fund group of the payment. Notes on Section 13 (Social Security and Medicare) Table 13.1 displays the transactions of the Social Security and Medicare trust funds, including trust fund income, outgo, and balances, from their inception. Over the past several decades the Social Security programs (the Federal old-age and survivors insurance (OASI) and the Federal disability insurance (DI) trust funds) and the Medicare programs (the Federal hospital insurance (HI) and the Federal supplementary medical insurance (SMI) trust funds) have grown to be among the largest parts of the Federal budget. Because of the size, the rates of growth, and the specialized financing of these programs, policy analysts frequently wish to identify these activities separately from all other Federal taxes and spending. As discussed in the introductory notes, the two Social Security funds are off-budget, while the Medicare funds are on-budget. As Table 13.1 shows, the first of these funds (OASI) began in 1937. The table shows the annual transactions of that fund and of the other funds beginning with their points of origin. The table provides detailed information about Social Security and Medicare by fund. It shows total cash income (including offsetting receipts, but excluding any offsetting collections, which are offset within the expenditure accounts) by fund, separately identifying social insurance taxes and contributions, intragovernmental income, and proprietary receipts from the public. Virtually all of the proprietary receipts from the public, especially those for the SMI trust fund, are Medicare insurance premiums. The table shows the income, outgo, and surplus or deficit of each fund for each year, and also shows the balances of the funds available for future requirements. Most of these fund balances are invested in public debt securities and constitute a significant portion of the debt held by Government accounts (see Table 7.1). The SMI fund, which was established in 1967, is financed primarily by payments from Federal funds and secondarily by medical insurance premiums (proprietary receipts from the public). The other three trust funds are financed primarily by dedicated social insurance taxes. The law establishing the rate and base of these taxes allocates the tax receipts among the three funds. The table shows significant transfers by OASI and DI to the railroad retirement Social Security equivalent account. These transfers are equal to the additional amounts of money Social Security would have had to pay, less additional receipts it would have collected, if the rail labor force had been included directly under Social Security since the inception of the Social Security program. In 1983, when the OASI fund ran short of money, Congress passed legislation that (a) provided for a one-time acceleration of military service credit payments to these trust funds, (b) provided for a Federal fund payment to OASI and DI for the estimated value of checks issued in prior years and charged to the trust funds but never cashed, (c) required that the Treasury make payments to OASI, DI, and HI on the first day of the month for the estimated amounts of their social insurance taxes to be collected over the course of each month (thereby increasing each affected trust fund’s balances at the beginning of the month), and (d) subjected some Social Security benefits to Federal income or other taxes and provided for payments by Federal funds to Social Security of amounts equal to these additional taxes. Additionally, in 1983 the OASI fund borrowed from the DI and HI funds (the tables show the amounts of such borrowing and repayments of borrowing). The large intragovernmental collections by OASI, DI, and HI in 1983 are a result of the transactions described under (a) and (b) above. Also starting in 1983, OASI began paying interest to DI and HI to reimburse them for the balances OASI borrowed from them; OASI, DI, and HI paid interest to Treasury to compensate it for the balances transferred to these funds on the first day of each month. The legal requirement for Treasury to make payments on the first day of the month, and the associated interest payment, ended in 1985 for HI and in 1991 for OASI and DI. Notes on Section 14 (Total (Federal and State and Local) Government Finances) Section 14 provides a perspective on the size and composition of total Government (Federal, State, and local) receipts and spending. Both the Bureau of the Census and the Bureau of Economic Analysis in the Commerce Department provide information (in the national income and product accounts (NIPA) data) on income and spending for all levels of government in the United States. The tables in this section include the NIPA State and local transactions with the Federal Government (deducting the amount of overlap due to Federal grants to State and local governments) to measure total Government receipts and spending on a fiscal year basis. The NIPA State and local government receipts and expenditures have been adjusted to be more comparable to the Federal unified budget receipts and outlays by using State and local government Total Expenditures, by including NIPA Capital Receipts from Estate and Gift taxes, and by displaying State and local interest receipts as an offset to State and local interest expenditures. Notes on Section 15 (Federal Health Spending) Section 15 consists of Table 15.1, Total Outlays for Health Programs. This table shows a broad definition of total Federal health spending by type of health program, including defense and veterans’ health programs, Medicare, Medicaid, Federal employees’ health benefits and other health spending. It also shows Federal health spending as percentages of total outlays and of GDP. The Health Insurance Assistance category includes outlays in the following accounts: Payment Where Health Coverage Tax Credit Exceeds Liability for Tax Payment Where COBRA Credit Exceeds Liability for Tax Refundable Premium Tax Credit and Cost Sharing Reductions Cost Sharing Reductions Payment Where Small Business Health Insurance Tax Credit Exceeds Liability for Tax Pre-Existing Condition Insurance Plan Program Early Retiree Reinsurance Program Reinsurance and Risk Adjustment Program Payments The Other Health category consists of outlays in the health function (function 550) that are not shown in any other category on the table. Notes on Section 16 (Executive Branch Civilian Employment) Section 16 provides an overview of the size and scope of the Executive Branch Civilian work force. Federal employment in the Executive Branch is controlled on the basis of Full-Time Equivalent (FTE) employment, which is the measure of the total number of regular (non-overtime) hours worked by an employee divided by the number of compensable hours applicable to each fiscal year. A typical FTE workyear is equal to 2,080 hours. For example, one full-time employee counts as one FTE, and two employees who work half-time count as one FTE. FTE data have been collected for Executive Branch agencies since 1981. The tables included in this section illustrate the size of the Executive Branch Civilian work force utilizing the FTE measures. Table 16.1 shows FTEs for the Executive Branch and selected agencies for 1981 and subsequent years; Table 16.2 shows these FTEs as a percentage of total Executive Branch FTEs. Tables showing end-strength employment are no longer included in the Historical Tables. However, these data are now available from the Office of Personnel Management’s web site at: http://opm.gov/feddata/HistoricalTables/index.asp.