Like last year (and many other years), Congress once again missed its April 15th deadline to pass a budget. You may have heard talk about the President’s budget or the House budget. But these aren’t actionable pieces of legislation, but rather spending blueprints in line with the priorities of the party that produced it.
Last year Congress not only failed to produce a budget, but they also were not able to pass any of the twelve annual appropriations bills which give federal agencies the authority to spend the amount of money they are appropriated. This required Congress to pass a series of continuing resolutions, funding the government on a temporary basis, for weeks or months at a time.
Congress isn’t required to have a budget in order to begin considering appropriations bills – and that’s exactly what they’re doing starting today. (Check out our handy Budget Process infographic for a more detailed timeline.)
The Atlanta Journal Constitution has more details:
The House Appropriations Committee begins work today on budget bills for Homeland Security and a plan that deals with Military Construction and veterans programs.
The Homeland Security bill would spend $40.59 billion, down just over $1 billion from this year.
The Mil-Con bill would spend $72.5 billion, down only $615 million. To be clear, the amount for Military Construction is $14 billion, down $2.6 billion from last year. Most of the money in this particular bill is for the Department of Veterans Affairs.
These two bills could come to the House floor later this month. There are 12 appropriation bills that must be approved each year by the Congress.
At this point we shouldn’t be too surprised by Washington’s budgeting dysfunction. Shouldn’t Congress fulfill its most basic duty and pass an annual spending blueprint before considering specific spending through appropriations bills? As American families have had to budget and live within their means during this economic downtime, Washington should as well.
