Appropriations Subcommittees Begin Marking Up Budget Bills

June 10, 2008

House Appropriations subcommittees will begin marking up bills this week that will — eventually — become the backbone of what the government spends in fiscal 2009.

But the final outcome of that spending plan likely will not take shape until weeks or perhaps months after the new fiscal year begins on October 1. A standoff over spending between the White House and Capitol Hill is likely to result in Democrats’ setting aside much of the work on the appropriations bills until after the election, and possibly until the next presidential administration.

Still, the appropriators’ work in coming weeks will lay some groundwork for whenever the process resumes.

The Senate plans to begin its appropriations work later this month.

Democrats don’t plan to finish work on the 12 annual spending bills before the November elections unless President Bush backs off from his threat to veto appropriations measures that exceed his overall discretionary spending request of $991.6 billion.

Democrats are banking on their hope that Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., wins the election, but it will be a different ball game if the next administration is headed by Republican Sen. John McCain of Arizona.  John McCain may be just as likely to veto the bills as President Bush is, should he win, and in campaign speeches, vows to veto any spending bill with earmarks.

Regardless, the committees have to begin establishing the basis for the eventual end product, most likely an omnibus bill, which is expected to include $24.5 billion more in spending than Bush requested. That extra spending would go to such Democratic priorities as health care, education and infrastructure projects such as bridge repairs.

The process starts on the House side Wednesday, with subcommittee markups of the Homeland Security and Interior-Environment bills. The next day, the Military Construction-VA and Commerce-Justice-Science panels meet.

The full House Appropriations Committee is scheduled to finish marking up all of its bills by July 23, and Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer, D-Md., said last week that he hoped to start moving spending bills to the floor this month. But he was not optimistic about sending bills to Bush this year, noting the veto confrontations last year that led Democrats to pass an omnibus.

House appropriators are planning to include member earmarks in their bills, though whether they’ll be available at the subcommittee or full committee markups will vary by bill. Last year, the GOP revolted over a plan to keep earmarks out of the bills until after the House passed the bills.

The Senate Appropriations subcommittee markups could start as early as the week of June 16. No official schedule has been released, but Interior-Environment and Labor-HHS-Education are currently set to be marked up the week of June 23. Transportation-HUD and Legislative Branch are expected to see action in July.

A key question for Democrats is what to do with the Defense spending bill. Early in the year, the conventional wisdom had been that it would be the one bill Congress would complete, but that may not be the case now. Democrats have decided to include fiscal 2009 funding for operations in Iraq and Afghanistan in the war supplemental (HR 2642) they hope to enact this month, removing the need to use the Defense bill as a vehicle for more war funding.

John P. Murtha, D-Pa., chairman of the House Defense Appropriations panel, has questioned whether there will be time to do the regular Defense bill, pointing to Congress’ shortened election year calendar and the fact that his staff has been fully engaged in writing the supplemental.

If Democrats have to use a continuing resolution (CR) to keep the Pentagon funded until early next year, it will likely contain various changes to the current year’s funding to deal with the most urgent needs. It would be a very detailed CR.