House Passes Spending Package Including Health, Labor; Sends to Senate

ANCOR is sharing this article by Politico Pro because it is important for our members to keep track of the federal budget process. This specific bill includes funding for the Department of Agriculture, which funds the the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAPP on which many people with disabilities rely. It is also informative on the broader political atmosphere in Congress at this moment, which influences other spending topics such as Medicaid. Medicaid funds the majority of disability supports in the U.S.

As shared by Politico Pro:

“The House passed a $383 billion spending package Tuesday, staking Democratic funding priorities as the two parties haggle over a bigger picture budget deal to save the nation from the cleaver of sequestration and a funding lapse this fall.

The five-bill package the House passed 227-194 would fund seven of the nation’s 15 federal departments for the fiscal year that starts Oct. 1. That action will prove pointless, however, if congressional leaders don’t strike a broader compromise with the White House before funding runs out in three months.

Under the House bill, fiscal 2020 spending would be boosted for the departments of Agriculture, Transportation, Interior, Housing and Urban Development, Commerce, Veterans Affairs and Justice, as well as the National Science Foundation, the EPA, military construction projects and the FDA.

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In the Senate, GOP leaders have held off on releasing a single spending bill for fiscal 2020 in the absence of a bipartisan agreement on budget caps.

While Senate Republicans have yet to lay out their own tentative funding levels, they are seeking a smaller increase than the 6 percent boost House Democrats are proposing for non-defense programs, as well as a larger uptick than the 2 percent funding increase the House has set for the military.

Further complicating appropriations strategy in both chambers this year, White House officials started publicly suggesting the idea last week of enacting a one-year stopgap spending package that would keep federal funding static until a month before the 2020 election.”