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Tuesday, September 05, 2006
Congress's In-"appropriate" Priorities
The Senate is now taking up the must-pass-eventually defense appropriations bill. From BNA (subscription):
Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) said the Senate will convene Sept. 5 and immediately take up the DOD spending bill that lawmakers failed to finish prior to the August recess.
The DOD measure, the largest of the FY 2007 discretionary spending bills, is also the vehicle for another $50 billion installment for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Frist, who has scheduled the first vote later that day, also said he wants the Senate to consider the spending bill for military construction programs in September.
Also possible is final action on the annual spending bill for the Department of Homeland Security. The legislative agenda in September, aides said, will reflect the GOP's desire to highlight the party's record on security matters in advance of the election.
The defense appropriations bill, though, is only the tip of the iceberg. BNA again:
The Senate could turn to other appropriations measures after disposing of the DOD bill. With the start of the new fiscal year less than a month away, the Senate has passed only the Department of Homeland Security spending bill (H.R. 5441).
The House, on the other hand, has passed all but one of its funding bills--for the departments of Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education, and related agencies (H.R. 5647). Republicans have held up the movement of the Labor-HHS bill primarily because of concerns about the minimum wage provision attached during committee deliberations.
To date, none of the regular spending bills have been signed into law.
Congress needs to have passed all appropriations bills for FY 07 by October 1st, the beginning of the new fiscal year. But the Senate has so much work left to do on appropriations that it's virtually guaranteed that it won't finish on time, in which case they'll hold a lame-duck session after the November election to pass all the remaining appropriations bills. In the meantime, they will have to pass a "continuing resolution," which temporarily extends this year's appropriations policy into FY 07. More here:
The remaining nondefense, nonsecurity FY 2007 appropriations bill all appear destined now to be finished in November.
With many of the bills reflecting the cuts to domestic programs that Bush proposed in his own budget, GOP leaders have sought to avoid debates on the bills until after the election. And once the elections are over, aides said, it may be easier to cut deals to complete the bills.
At this point, aides said that appropriators plan to pass a continuing resolution to keep the government running for several weeks after FY 2006 ends Sept. 30. But a second CR will likely be needed to last through late November to give lawmakers ample time to wrap up their work, they said.
Perhaps Congress should have put in a little more time on the job this session. Or maybe saving America from sin and iniquity could have waited until we got done paying our bills.
Posted by Matt Lewis
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