Category: Budget

Last night, President Barack Obama addressed a joint session of Congress to give a preview of his first budget request. While it was short on actual numbers, the President did pledge to seek cuts in certain defense, farm, and education programs and root out waste in government spending. He further said that his administration has already identified nearly $2 trillion dollars in savings over the next decade through cuts to programs that they consider wasteful and ineffective. Obama is expected to release an outline of his first budget request on Thursday.  We expect that this will provide broad budget numbers at the agency level but not a lot of detail for individual programs. It will, however, provide us with a glimpse of how the administration will begin to increase — or decrease — funding for certain programs. The Office of Federal Relations will look for those items that might affect the UW, including those affecting education and research programs.

The $410 billion omnibus appropriations bill may pass the House of Representatives as early as this Wednesday and in the following few days in the Senate. The higher education community was successful in its advocacy for increases in some agencies and programs of critical importance. Additionally, UW was successful in securing support for congressionally directed appropriations for high priority campus projects in the FY09 cycle. The government is faced with a March 6th deadline to complete work on the omnibus, as the continuing resolution — that is currently funding the government at FY2008 levels — expires at that point. Continue reading “FY09 Omnibus Figures Available for Key Higher Education Accounts”

The House and Senate will likely advance the remaining 9 fiscal year 2009 spending bills this week, as part of an omnibus appropriations package that will fund much of the government through September 30, 2009. Only 3 of 12 appropriations bills have been completed to date: defense, homeland security, and veterans affairs. At an earlier stage of the FY09 appropriations process, former President George W. Bush indicated that he would veto spending bills that exceeded his domestic discretionary spending caps. As a result, in order to advance desired increases, Congress decided to wait for a new administration to take office in order to closeout the FY09 appropriations process. The omnibus appropriations bill will contain an estimated $410 billion in spending for mostly domestic programs.

Congressional aides have indicated that the omnibus FY09 appropriations bill is not likely to contain significant changes from the draft created during the 110th (last) Congress. The omnibus package will increase government spending approximately 6.7% over the FY08 budget. For a recap of key health and education funding levels in the draft FY09 appropriations bills, see the budget section of this website or contact Jonathan in the UW Office of Federal Relations. The Office of Federal Relations will repost key FY09 appropriations figures as bill moves towards finalization. In a Tuesday speech to a joint-session of Congress and the nation, President Obama will provide some details on his FY10 budget request, which will be presented in outline form later this week and in full in the spring.

**UPDATE**

The House Appropriations Committee has released fact sheets on each of the remaining 9 FY09 spending bills (see below):

Omnibus FY09 Appropriations Bill (Conference Agreement)

Agriculture Approriations

Commerce/Justice/Science Appropriations

Energy and Water Appropriations

Financial Services Appropriations

Interior and the Environment Appropriations

Labor/Health/Education Appropriations

Legislative Branch Appropriations

State and Foreign Operations Appropriations

Transportation/Housing and Urban Development Appropriations

Below please find a link to estimated figures on funding to the state of Washington from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. According to the figures provided, the state of Washington will receive approximately $4.73 billion.

Recovery Act Funding for the State of Washington (click here)