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Tuesday, May 01, 2007
Which Comes First, the Budget or the Bills?
Congress' focus on the emergency war spending supplemental has come at the cost of momentum on the FY 2008 budget resolution. House Appropriations subcommittee chairs hope to meet the goal set by the Democratic leadership of having all 12 annual appropriations bills adopted by the July 4 recess, leaving the Senate and conference committees adequate time to complete the bills by Oct. 1, the start of FY 2008.
So, while they wait for a vote on the conference committee budget resolution, the Appropriations chairs are starting in on their spending bills. This creates a problem.
The budget resolution sets the overall discretionary funding cap that the Appropriations committees divide among their bills. Regarding the appropriations bills to come, House Democratic leaders are already preparing for their arrival on the floor as soon as the week of May 14, without the framework of a bicameral compromise budget.
House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-MD) said last week that the House might have to "deem" a top-line spending cap rather than wait for passage of a budget conference report. But time is short: to avert an awkward and confusing budget-making sequence, Congress would need to adopt the budget conference report within the next week.
Posted by Dana Chasin
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