Whats the difference between Budget Authority and Outlays?
Budget Authority is the amount of money that an agency has been given permission to spend over the next few years. Outlays are the amount of money that is actually spent in a given year. Outlays in a given year can include leftover money that was approved in Budget Authority from previous years, and it does not include money in the given year’s Budget Authority that is not spent until succeeding years. The figures are usually fairly close to each other, with increases or decreases in Outlays lagging behind changes in Budget Authority.
