Supplemental vs. The Budget Deficit - April 29, 2002 Vol. 3 No. 9

April 29, 2002 Vol. 3 No. 9:

Published: 04/29/2002

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Supplemental vs. The Budget Deficit

The House Appropriations Committee will not be marking up the President's FY 2002 $27.1 billion supplemental spending request, as scheduled for tomorrow – and, in fact, the delay on the supplemental seems to be indefinite at this point, according to many sources.

Apparently the hold-up on the supplemental, which mostly provides extra funding for defense and homeland security spending, arose when House members made it clear they planned to make additional requests to the President's $27 billion request. Among these, according to a report by the Washington trade publication BNA, was $650 million for election reform, requested by House Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-IL). The House leadership is concerned that the supplemental will be the starting pistol for a race to tack on numerous spending requests that will further enlarge the projected $100 billion deficit for FY 2002 (see related story, this issue).

In the Senate, similar concerns over spending priorities and recognition of the fact that there will be little chance to reconcile a House budget resolution with a Senate budget resolution have led to an indefinite postponement of a crafting of a Senate budget resolution (see this April 1, 2002 Watcher article).