JohnButts@JBMedia - Reports:
Senate Appropriations Chairwoman Barbara Mikulski said Monday she is “very encouraged” by the progress made in talks with the House and believes the two sides are within “striking distance” of reaching agreement this week on a long-sought omnibus bill to keep the government funded through September.
The Maryland Democrat conceded that “sticking points” remain over President Barack Obama’s health care program and financial reforms, as well as new education initiatives for preschool-age children. But her tone was consistently positive in a short hallway interview, and she seemed confident that there is a path to resolve the final issues.
Much as the December deal set new caps for spending by Congress, the bill now spells out where those dollars go. Its very scope and detail invite conflict, which makes the House-Senate talks such a challenge. But the whole endeavor has huge implications for the Appropriations leadership and Congress more broadly after the turmoil of recent years.
Speed is essential given the deadlines ahead.
The government remains under a stopgap continuing resolution or CR due to expire on Jan. 15 and Congress leaves soon after for its mid-January recess. As a practical matter, some extension of the CR will be needed — and should not be controversial if the omnibus is proceeding on course. But the Appropriations leadership wants to keep any extension short so that the pressure is on to complete passage before lawmakers leave Jan. 17.
Weather delayed a meeting planned Monday between Mikulski and her House counterpart, Rep. Hal Rogers (R-Ky.) — “snowbound in Louisville,” she said. But the two were expected to talk, and Alabama Sen. Richard Shelby, the ranking Republican on the Senate panel, was described as also supportive of getting a bill.
Shelby is an important player as the former Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee chairman and an opponent of Obama’s financial reforms. He also stood out last month for his opposition to the December deal, which was strongly backed by Rogers.
But the senator’s spokesman, Jonathan Graffeo, said Shelby has been working “side by side” with Mikulski “to reach an agreement that they can both support.”
The stakes are big for the White House and Obama’s Cabinet as well. Sylvia Mathews Burwell, the new director of the Office of Management and Budget, has brought a greater energy to the task, and Treasury Secretary Jack Lew has worked the phones with Republicans as well as Democrats in an uphill fight to move ahead with reforms at the International Monetary Fund.
But Lew stands out for his willingness to work both sides of the aisle — something many in Obama’s Cabinet fail to do. And Obama is paying a price for hasty concessions in the past and his often feckless approach to appropriations generally.
For example, the administration had requested $4.8 billion in fiscal 2013 for the program management account within the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services — the chief source of discretionary funds to implement the president’s health care reforms.
But the White House then settled for just $3.8 billion last spring — a number that only got worse with sequestration.
Through the summer, the administration was able to buy time by tapping into mandatory funds, authorized by the Affordable Care Act and separate from appropriations. But these wells are beginning to run dry.
A $1 billion implementation fund created by ACA is largely depleted, for example. And the White House’s own allies were upset when it took more than $450 million out of the Prevention and Public Health Fund, a priority for Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa), a senior member of the Senate Appropriations Committee.
Attention is now focused more on a third, separate innovation fund, which received a lump sum $10 billion appropriation over 10 years under ACA. The money is intended to explore new ways to reduce costs and improve services for Medicare and Medicaid, not to implement health reform per se. But it could be a way to meet CMS needs here, thereby freeing up more discretionary money in the program management account.
In the case of Obama’s financial reforms, the dollars for regulatory agencies are far less — even as they affect the conduct of far greater markets.
A case in point is the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, which was assigned a greater role over derivative markets under the Dodd-Frank law in 2010 but has met strong resistance from conservatives like Shelby who hold the purse strings.
In the wake of sequestration, the current appropriation for the CFTC is $194.6 million — more than one-third less than Obama requested. Indeed, it is also less than the agency received in 2011 and 2012, and in terms of personnel, the staff of 652 at the CFTC today is about 50 fewer than what the agency had 15 months ago at the end of fiscal 2012.
Mikulski’s reference to Obama’s preschool education initiatives is a measure too of how tight the overall caps remain even with the adjustments allowed in the December budget.
Nondefense spending will be restored to $491.8 billion — roughly the same levels as before the March sequestration cuts. But that’s far less than President George W. Bush enjoyed at the end of his administration in 2008 and it will require Mikulski to cut $14 billion from the domestic spending bills that her committee approved over the summer.
Back then, adding $750 million for preschool development grants in the Education Department was doable. Now it is harder, and even powerhouses like the National Institutes of Health may find it hard to get back to just the level promised last spring.
Rogers must worry too about selling a package that will have far less for the Pentagon than the defense appropriations bill that he helped pass in the House in July. But negotiators have helped themselves here by using a higher number for overseas contingency or OCO funds than the administration asked for in its final budget request.
This is not out of line with the House budget resolution, which also used the higher number. But it does buy some precious leeway for security accounts, since OCO dollars are counted outside the caps. And the December budget agreement was silent on the subject of what number to use.
The Maryland Democrat conceded that “sticking points” remain over President Barack Obama’s health care program and financial reforms, as well as new education initiatives for preschool-age children. But her tone was consistently positive in a short hallway interview, and she seemed confident that there is a path to resolve the final issues.
“I’m very encouraged. I think we’ve made a lot of progress,” Mikulski said. “We’re within striking distance. I think we’re going to get it.”
Hundreds of pages long, the $1 trillion-plus measure will literally touch every corner of government and is a crucial second step following on the bipartisan budget agreement reached in December.Much as the December deal set new caps for spending by Congress, the bill now spells out where those dollars go. Its very scope and detail invite conflict, which makes the House-Senate talks such a challenge. But the whole endeavor has huge implications for the Appropriations leadership and Congress more broadly after the turmoil of recent years.
Speed is essential given the deadlines ahead.
The government remains under a stopgap continuing resolution or CR due to expire on Jan. 15 and Congress leaves soon after for its mid-January recess. As a practical matter, some extension of the CR will be needed — and should not be controversial if the omnibus is proceeding on course. But the Appropriations leadership wants to keep any extension short so that the pressure is on to complete passage before lawmakers leave Jan. 17.
Weather delayed a meeting planned Monday between Mikulski and her House counterpart, Rep. Hal Rogers (R-Ky.) — “snowbound in Louisville,” she said. But the two were expected to talk, and Alabama Sen. Richard Shelby, the ranking Republican on the Senate panel, was described as also supportive of getting a bill.
Shelby is an important player as the former Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee chairman and an opponent of Obama’s financial reforms. He also stood out last month for his opposition to the December deal, which was strongly backed by Rogers.
But the senator’s spokesman, Jonathan Graffeo, said Shelby has been working “side by side” with Mikulski “to reach an agreement that they can both support.”
The stakes are big for the White House and Obama’s Cabinet as well. Sylvia Mathews Burwell, the new director of the Office of Management and Budget, has brought a greater energy to the task, and Treasury Secretary Jack Lew has worked the phones with Republicans as well as Democrats in an uphill fight to move ahead with reforms at the International Monetary Fund.
But Lew stands out for his willingness to work both sides of the aisle — something many in Obama’s Cabinet fail to do. And Obama is paying a price for hasty concessions in the past and his often feckless approach to appropriations generally.
For example, the administration had requested $4.8 billion in fiscal 2013 for the program management account within the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services — the chief source of discretionary funds to implement the president’s health care reforms.
But the White House then settled for just $3.8 billion last spring — a number that only got worse with sequestration.
Through the summer, the administration was able to buy time by tapping into mandatory funds, authorized by the Affordable Care Act and separate from appropriations. But these wells are beginning to run dry.
A $1 billion implementation fund created by ACA is largely depleted, for example. And the White House’s own allies were upset when it took more than $450 million out of the Prevention and Public Health Fund, a priority for Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa), a senior member of the Senate Appropriations Committee.
Attention is now focused more on a third, separate innovation fund, which received a lump sum $10 billion appropriation over 10 years under ACA. The money is intended to explore new ways to reduce costs and improve services for Medicare and Medicaid, not to implement health reform per se. But it could be a way to meet CMS needs here, thereby freeing up more discretionary money in the program management account.
In the case of Obama’s financial reforms, the dollars for regulatory agencies are far less — even as they affect the conduct of far greater markets.
A case in point is the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, which was assigned a greater role over derivative markets under the Dodd-Frank law in 2010 but has met strong resistance from conservatives like Shelby who hold the purse strings.
In the wake of sequestration, the current appropriation for the CFTC is $194.6 million — more than one-third less than Obama requested. Indeed, it is also less than the agency received in 2011 and 2012, and in terms of personnel, the staff of 652 at the CFTC today is about 50 fewer than what the agency had 15 months ago at the end of fiscal 2012.
Mikulski’s reference to Obama’s preschool education initiatives is a measure too of how tight the overall caps remain even with the adjustments allowed in the December budget.
Nondefense spending will be restored to $491.8 billion — roughly the same levels as before the March sequestration cuts. But that’s far less than President George W. Bush enjoyed at the end of his administration in 2008 and it will require Mikulski to cut $14 billion from the domestic spending bills that her committee approved over the summer.
Back then, adding $750 million for preschool development grants in the Education Department was doable. Now it is harder, and even powerhouses like the National Institutes of Health may find it hard to get back to just the level promised last spring.
Rogers must worry too about selling a package that will have far less for the Pentagon than the defense appropriations bill that he helped pass in the House in July. But negotiators have helped themselves here by using a higher number for overseas contingency or OCO funds than the administration asked for in its final budget request.
This is not out of line with the House budget resolution, which also used the higher number. But it does buy some precious leeway for security accounts, since OCO dollars are counted outside the caps. And the December budget agreement was silent on the subject of what number to use.
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