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Category: Appropriations

One Federal Fiscal Year Ends, Another One Begins

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Federal FY2017 comes to a close Saturday night, September 30. To prevent the government from shutting down Sunday morning at the start of FY2018, Congress passed and the President signed into law earlier this month a short-term funding measure that would keep the federal government funded through the first week of December essentially at FY2017 levels.

Whether and if any of the 12 individual spending bills for FY2018 are dealt with before the short-term funding package expires on December 9 remains to be seen.

Hurricane-Debt Ceiling-Short-Term Spending Package Expected to be Cleared

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In a surprising development earlier this week, President Trump struck a deal with the Democratic leadership in Congress to link measures that would increase the debt ceiling and keep the government funded on a temporary basis to a hurricane-relief bill.  The move caught Congressional Republicans off guard, who had earlier expressed opposition to tying the debt ceiling and government-funding efforts to a bill to fund the rebuilding efforts after Hurricane Harvey.

After the House cleared a stand-along hurricane bill totaling approximately $8 billion earlier this week, the Senate followed up by nearly doubling the size of the package as well as increasing the debt limit and funding the government through December 8.  The House is expected to take up the Senate-passed package later today.

 

Deal Reached on Short-Term Debt, Spending, and Hurricane Package?

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It appears that President Trump has sided with the Democrats on a legislative package that would deal with the quickly approaching deadlines to pass annual spending bills and increase the debt ceiling.  The Democratic leadership in Congress had proposed to the White House a short-term spending bill and a short-term debt limit increase, both until December 15, which would be packaged together with an initial relief bill to address the aftermath of Hurricane Harvey.  President Trump has agreed to the proposal.

Read more here, here, and here.

 

House Passes “Minibus” Package

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While the Senate was busy with healthcare yesterday, on the other side of the Capitol, the House took up a “minibus” spending package for FY2018, consisting of four bills:  Defense, Energy and Water, Legislative Branch, and Military Construction.  The House Republicans combined these four bills as a defense-oriented package, after an initial conversation to pull together all 12 spending measures were unfruitful.

The bill passed by a vote of 235 to 192.

Even though the package has been adopted by the House, its biggest portion, the Defense bill, contains funding recommendations that cannot be implemented without change in law.  The allocation for defense programs in the bill exceed the current allowable limit by more than $70 billion, meaning that either the law will need to be changed or the funding levels in the bill will need to be altered.

House Begins to Move Four-Bill Spending Package

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On Wednesday, the House approved rules that will govern the floor debate for a four-bill spending package for FY2018.  The House leadership earlier this week decided to combine four of the appropriations bills for next year– the Legislative Branch, Military Construction, Energy and Water, and Defense– into a single legislative package and move them together through the House.  The House will act on the “minibus” package this week.

The House is expected to take up the Legislative Branch and Military Construction bills before moving on to the Energy and Water legislation later this evening.  The Defense bill is expected to be the last of the four measures that will be brought up.