"This doesn't fall into the category of what he calls nondiscretionary spending.

"As a result, consumer spending on nondiscretionary items in the first quarter will be very soft.

"These orders are nondiscretionary, Thomas," it said, and his fists clenched.

"It also shows that consumers are disinterested in anything but low-ticket, nondiscretionary goods."

I am afraid that his instructions are nondiscretionary."

The industry gets about 60 percent of its sales from drugs, which are nondiscretionary, and about 40 percent from convenience items.

Institutional financing remains nondiscretionary under Medicaid.

It was nondiscretionary.

For all the good news in the latest budget, these rising nondiscretionary costs portend larger deficits in the future if revenues do not grow significantly.

My Refco account was a nondiscretionary account, which meant that I had to approve and give the go-ahead for every trade.

The judge accepted the schedule, ordering city officials to come up with a detailed recycling program and to comply with "their nondiscretionary, legally mandated duties."

"What the mayor is saying is that they're caused by these escalating nondiscretionary expenditures," Ms. Fortuna said.

Further, Federal-Mogul specializes in so-called nondiscretionary components, like engine parts, that sell at higher premiums than, say, wiper blades.

While many fiscal experts sympathize with Mr. Bloomberg's handling of the budget, others suggest he has failed to tackle the costly "nondiscretionary" obligations that saddle the city.

"Under N.O.A.A.'s interpretation," he wrote, the agency "would be able to exempt itself from accountability by characterizing some, even lethal, elements of any proposed action as 'nondiscretionary."'

Ms. McCaughey points with alarm to a provision that empowers states to make "mandatory, nondiscretionary reduction in payments" to doctors and hospitals if health care costs exceed preset budgets.

"They form a continuum," said Stephen Brobeck, executive director of the Consumer Federation of America, but the continuum, he said, is tilting toward more nondiscretionary spending.

Mr. Bloomberg has long included the rising cost of debt service in his list of so-called nondiscretionary expenses, such as Medicaid and employee pensions, that he says are mostly beyond the city's control.

If he is not paroled, but behaves properly in prison, he would still serve only 20 of the 30 years under other, nondiscretionary provisions that reward good behavior in prison with reduced time.

Mrs. Clinton's account was one of the few in the office that was nondiscretionary, meaning that either she or someone with her power of attorney had to personally phone in orders to her broker.

B3 Expensive Trend in Budget So-called nondiscretionary costs in the city's budget, mostly for Medicaid, employee pensions and interest on municipal debt, are a threat to the city's future fiscal health.

"Medicaid, pensions and other nondiscretionary spending are spiraling out of control," Mr. Barowitz said, adding that the rising costs "threaten New York's ability to fund schools, cops, parks and other vital services."

In 1970, the pace quickened with the appointment of James Day as president and the growing support of the Ford Foundation with "nondiscretionary" financing - that is, monies with few if any strings attached.

They hadn't quite made it a nondiscretionary order, but they had specifically denied her the right to take any 'cat other than Nimitz with her aboard the military transport whose use her orders to Grayson authorized.

He pointed to forecasts showing those costs rising to $24 billion in 2008 from the current level of $19 billion, adding that next year the amount of nondiscretionary spending would exceed all other city spending by $5.3 billion.