Defense Budgeting Dynamics: The Relationships Among Late Budgets and Late Appropriations and the Content of Continuing Resolutions

Abstract

To better prepare the Department of Defense (DOD) against the negative effects of late appropriations and their resultant continuing resolutions (CRs), our research covers three primary areas: 50 years of Presidential Budget (PB) submissions, Congressional Budget Resolutions (BR), and DOD Authorization and Appropriation Act data. First, our research conducts a historical trend analysis intended to highlight positive, negative, and neutral tendencies. Second, our research aims to determine which federal budgetary deliverable has the strongest correlation to appropriation timeliness. Finally, our research examines how CRs have evolved over time across six basic characteristics: frequency of CRs, CR anomalies, supplemental appropriations and anomalies, CR duration, CR page length, and funding rates. Our research indicated significant evidence to support that budgetary deliverable timeliness is getting worse, that political variables are both strongly correlated and highly influential throughout the data, and that CRs have dynamically shifted in funding structure, length, and frequency throughout the years covered by this research.