Congressional leaders have not yet determined topline budget numbers for FY2017 even though Congress is supposed to pass a budget by April 15th under the Congressional Budget Act in order to begin the annual spending process. And it does not appear that House leadership has any plan ahead for passing a budget by Friday’s deadline. The House and Senate could still pass a budget after April 15th if they can reach an agreement but neither of the two sides — conservatives who want lower spending levels versus lawmakers who want to adhere to last year’s bipartisan deal — are budging.
Nonetheless, House appropriators are still moving forward with individual FY2017 spending bills this week despite the dim chances of them ever reaching the floor. The House Appropriations Committee is using the spending levels outlined in last year’s budget deal for now so that its bills can advance. The full House Appropriations Committee will take up the bill funding the Department of Veterans Affairs and military construction projects. Also on Wednesday, the Energy-Water and Agriculture subcommittees are scheduled to mark up their spending measures.
On the other side of the Capitol, Senate Appropriations Committee plans to mark up its own versions of the Military Construction-VA and Energy-Water bills in subcommittees on Wednesday and full committee on Thursday, when it also will reveal how much discretionary money each of its subcommittees will be allocated to spend. Senate leaders already have said they will assume an overall discretionary limit of $1.07 trillion. Unlike in the House, there has been no opposition to that limit in the Senate.
All of this is leading up to one giant mess come the start of the new fiscal year on October 1st. It is all but certain that Congress will need to pass at least one continuing resolution (CR) to keep government funded in absence of new spending authority for FY2017.
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