Congress Passes Omnibus Bill (12/20/07)

On Wednesday, the House passed H.R. 2764, the omnibus appropriations bill for fiscal year 2008 (FY08), by a vote of 272-142. Finally, about two and half months after the beginning of the fiscal year, government agencies will finally know what their budget will look like for the remainder of the period running through September 30, 2008. Congress has not yet formally sent the omnibus bill to the President. It is expected to take an additional week to 10 days before the bill is formally transmitted to the White House, so President Bush is not likely to sign the package before the middle of next week. The White House has received the fourth continuing resolution (CR), which was passed by Congress earlier this week and the President signed that bill today. This CR would continue funding the government through Dec. 31.

The final version of the omnibus bill came in at about $566 billion for all non-defense domestic spending, bringing the total in FY08 discretionary spending down to near the $933 billion cap that the President requested. Although the Democratic majority in Congress had proposed significant increases for many key education programs, the final bill contains only a few key increases and a number of cuts. One such victim, Career and Technical Education (CTE) Basic State Grants, was slated to receive its first significant increase in years. Instead, because Democrats could not get their desired spending levels past a Presidential veto, CTE is receiving a $6.8 million cut. The following programs received increases:

• Title I: Up $1.2 billion to $14 billion
• Special Education: Up $285.5 million to $12 billion
• Pell Grants: Up $544 million to $14.2 billion
• School Improvement Grants: Up $366 million to $491 million (a 293% increase)

All of the programs in the omnibus bill received an across the board cut of 1.747% from the already agreed upon levels. For the Labor-HHS-Education programs, this means the cut came from the bill Congress passed last month, which the President vetoed. So, for some of the programs, the across the board cut did not amount to a significant cut, simply because the previous vetoed bill already contained an increase above fiscal year 2007 levels. Appropriators also cut funding from the many earmarked projects that members had in the omnibus bill.

Although the bill passed through both Houses, many Democrats, especially in the House, were not pleased with the bill. Once the President signs the bill, total spending for FY08 will total about $23 billion less than the cap Democrats set last spring in the joint budget resolution.

The fiscal struggle hit high gear in November when Congress sent the President a Labor-HHS-Education bill that called for about $12 billion more than what the President sought. After the House sustained the veto, appropriators began working on a proposal for an omnibus bill that would cut total spending down by $11 billion, in an attempt to “meet the President halfway.” However, with Bush’s promise to veto such a bill, Republicans in Congress were unwilling to negotiate anything that still totaled spending at $11 billion over the President’s request. Finally, last week, House Appropriations Chairman David Obey (D-WI) moved forward with an across the board cut, as well as other more targeted cuts, in order to introduce an omnibus bill that came in near the cap desired by the White House.

Democrats were not thrilled with this proposal, but were willing to go forward as long as they could claim some sort of victory. The House decided to pass the bill without any funding for the war in Iraq, opting not to give the President the money without some sort of timeline for redeployment. That version passed by a vote of 253-154, with a majority of Democrats voting in favor of the bill. However, the Senate added about $40 billion for Iraq once the bill came to their chamber. Because of the change, the Senate sent it back to the House for final approval. Once the House resumed debate on the Senate amendment, most Democrats spoke against the bill because of the added money for Iraq. However, when the final vote came around, 194 Republicans, along with 78 Democrats were enough to pass the bill, Despite the 141 Democrats and one Republican who voted against the final bill.

The President is expected to sign the bill, claiming a decisive victory, along with Congressional Republicans, over the new Democratic majority. While Democrats maintain that most programs would have made out far worse if the Republicans were still the majority, the fact remains that Democrats were unable to follow through on one of their biggest campaign promises. Throughout 2006, leading up to the midterm elections, Democrats repeatedly promised to do what the Republicans seemed unable to do: pass all 12 appropriations bills individually and on time. Instead, more than two months after the start of the fiscal year, Congress passed one large omnibus, consisting of 11 of the 12 bills, with spending levels about $23 billion below what they wanted. The battle will start up again in two months when the President begins the next appropriations cycle by introducing his proposed budget for fiscal year 2009.

Resources:
Ashley Roque, “House Approves Omnibus Spending With Iraq War Funds; Bush Expected to Sign,” Congress Now, December 19, 2007.
David Clarke and Liriel Higa, “Spending Fight Set to End in House,” CQ Today, December 18, 2007.
Author: SAS