Appropriations: Tight Timelines Ahead

When the House and Senate adjourn this week, they will leave all twelve appropriations bills for fiscal year 2008 (FY08) in limbo until they return in September. The House has passed eleven of the twelve spending bills, leaving the Defense appropriations until September. Meanwhile, the Senate has only passed the Homeland Security bill, leaving eleven other bills incomplete until the members return to Washington next month. Both chambers are set to return on Tuesday, September 4, at which point they will have fewer than four weeks for each body to pass the remaining bills, go to conference, pass the conference report, and face a possible Presidential veto. If Congress is unable to complete the various bills before September 30, the end of the fiscal year, then appropriators will pass a continuing resolution to keep government operations running past the deadline. This leaves a cloudy outlook for the FY08 appropriations.

As previously reported, President Bush has threatened to veto any spending bills that are too far above his requests for FY08. The Labor-HHS-Education bill, which exceeds Bush’s request by about $12 billion, is near the top of the list of bills in danger of a veto. The bill’s fate relies heavily on the resolve of the 147 Republicans who pledged their support to sustain a presidential veto. That resolve, however, is in question since some of the 147 members have already voted for the bills at issue. 145 votes are necessary to sustain the veto.

If all 147 hold firm, then the Democratic leaders may try to pass an omnibus bill consisting of multiple appropriations measures. The bundled appropriations make a veto more challenging for the President and Congress since the stakes are higher. Yet, the Democrats, no doubt, would rather avoid this gamesmanship and pass all spending bills in a more timely fashion than the previous Republican majority.

Before Congress can get to that crossroads, the Senate still needs to pass its Labor-HHS-Education bill, and go to conference with the House. Although the House bill appropriates slightly higher levels of spending, the two bills have some differences that conferees need to work out. While on the House floor, members passed a series of amendments that shifted money from program to program. A point of contention is likely to be the $175 million cut to the Department of Education’s (ED) administrative funds. The salaries and expenses fund was cut nearly in half to provide additional funding for certain member’s favored programs, without increasing the overall cost of the bill. For example, $125 million was shifted from administrative funds to help support programs for Historically Black Colleges and Universities.

To save time, House Appropriations Chairman David Obey (D-WI) offered no concrete opposition to what he called “pretend amendments,” though he warned members that these shifts would not likely survive conference with the Senate. Most Senators will likely follow Obey’s rationale: Although many of these programs deserve more funding, it cannot come at the expense of the administrative budgets of executive agencies. Cutting ED’s expense and salary funds will force the agency to downsize programmatic and administrative staff. As Chairman Obey put it, there is no use in increasing the grant money if there is no staff left to administer the grant.

Appropriators have many options over the next few months, be it a continuing resolution or a large omnibus package. While members return to their districts for the month-long recess, Congressional staffers will likely remain in Washington to continue negotiations between the two chambers as well as the White House. Congress may be in recess, but appropriators will certainly not be on vacation.

Resources:
Jennifer Bendery, “Senate Will Spend September Working on Spending Bills,” Congress Now, August 2, 2007.
Author: SAS