House Panel to Start Work
on FY 2005 Spending Bills
May 28, 2004 - Despite continued uncertainty about
the fate of the FY 2005 budget resolution, the House Appropriations
Committee plans to begin work on next year's spending bills
by scheduling as many as three subcommittee markups when Congress
returns from its Memorial Day recess. The Defense, Interior
and Homeland Security appropriations subcommittees are reportedly
slated to mark up draft versions of their FY 2005 spending
bills during the first week that Congress is back in session.
Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) was forced to
postpone a Senate vote on the conference report on the FY
2005 budget resolution (S.Con.Res.
95 - H.Rept.
108-498) before Memorial Day when it became clear that
he did not have the votes to secure passage of the budget
plan [see Washington Highlights,
May 21]. Despite the Senate's failure to pass the budget
agreement, the House can move forward with its appropriations
bills because under its rules, when the House passed the budget
conference report May 19, it approved or "deemed"
the FY 2005 discretionary spending ceiling specified in the
conference agreement.
As a result, total spending for the 13 FY 2005 spending bills
to be considered by the House Appropriations Committee is
capped at $821 billion, about $2 billion less than President
Bush's FY 2005 budget request. In addition, once increases
for defense and homeland security are factored out, the total
for all other domestic is frozen at the current year's levels.
The GOP leadership has set a goal of reporting as many bills
out of committee and onto the House floor as possible before
Congress begins a six-week summer recess July 23. However,
the combination of a tight budget that will freeze or cut
many popular domestic programs and election year pressures
from voters back home means the leadership faces an uphill
fight getting the spending bills out of committee, and even
greater challenges securing House approval. This has led to
speculation that the leadership may try to package some of
the less attractive bills with "must pass" bills
such as defense and homeland security to get them through
the House floor.
The schedule for the Labor-HHS-Education and VA-HUD-Independent
Agencies bills is uncertain, although some staff are reporting
the VA-HUD subcommittee may not take up its bill until the
week of July 19.
Information:
Dave Moore, Senior Director
AAMC Government Relations
dbmoore@aamc.org
(202) 828-0525
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