Budget Matters Blog

If you're concerned about gridlock in Washington, get ready for more fireworks. May 15 marks the unofficial start of the annual appropriations process on Capitol Hill, where Congress begins putting together the spending bills that support many domestic federal programs and the Pentagon.First, let’s take a couple of steps back. Each year, with the February release of the president’s budget request, the White House and Congress begin a Five-Step process that normally results in a federal budget. Step Two is the enactment of House and Senate budget resolutions which guide the remainder of the process.Things ...

Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Martin Dempsey, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel and DoD comptroller Robert Hale testify before Congress on the Pentagon's request (courtesy of Defense Department)

Last week the Obama Administration released its long-overdue budget request for fiscal year 2014. As part of the request, the administration is seeking $526.6 billion for the Pentagon. This amount does not including funding for wars or the nuclear weapons activities at the Department of Energy.  Here are five things you need to know about the FY2014 Pentagon request:

1) It Doesn’t Contribute Much To Reducing The ...

Photo Courtesy of whitehouse.gov

The Budget and Accounting Act of 1921 requires the President to submit his budget request to Congress for the upcoming fiscal year no later than the first Monday of February. Back in January, however, the White House's Office of Management and Budget (OMB) announced it would delay the scheduled Feb. 4 release of the president’s fiscal year 2014 budget request until early March or later, and it is now expected to be released the week of April 8 – so late it will set a presidential record.According to the House Budget Committee, the ...

After months of inaction on the federal budget, Congress is now wrapping up work on two – the budget for fiscal year 2013, which began back on Oct. 1, 2012, and the first steps in a budget for fiscal 2014, which will begin on Oct. 1, 2013.

Since the beginning of FY2013 the government has been operating under a stop-gap spending bill – known as a Continuing Resolution (CR) – which funds the operations of federal agencies that haven’t had their specific annual budgets enacted by Congress. A CR allows any part of the government without a specific funding bill – known as ...

Image courtesy of acmoraes

Monday House Appropriations Committee Chair Hal Rogers (R-KY) introduced a bill that would extend the current stop-gap funding for government operations through Sept. 30, the end of the current fiscal year. The entire federal government has been operating without a budget since fiscal year 2013 began back on Oct. 1, and the current temporary spending bill – known officially as a continuing resolution (CR) – is set to expire on March 27.The legislation introduced yesterday would extend the current spending bill through the end of the fiscal year – in other words, Congress is proposing to go through ...

House Speaker John Boehner, President Barack Obama, and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid

Unable to broker an eleventh hour deal with congressional Republican leaders, President Obama signed the order activating the automatic across-the-board federal spending cuts – known as sequestration – on Friday.In the days prior to the March 1 deadline, the White House held a series of press briefings with the heads of various federal agencies highlighting the impact that sequestration would have on agency operations.Secretary of Education Arne Duncan warned that the $14.5 billion Title I budget – which provides assistance to low income communities – would be cut ...

Actually, the fiscal cliff never left. If you thought we solved the fiscal cliff with the deal back in January (or even the more recent debt ceiling deal), you’re mistaken. Washington left a bunch of issues unresolved, and actually made a couple of them worse. And it’s up to Congress to find some answers.

Sequestration

A major unresolved issue is sequestration – the automatic across-the-board spending cuts that were set to take effect on Jan. 2 – which the fiscal cliff deal simply delayed until March 1. And it looks increasingly like Congress will let sequestration go into effect, despite ...

Article II of the U.S. Constitution states that the president "shall from time to time give to the Congress information of the State of the Union."

While the date is not specified by the Constitution, traditionally the State of the Union takes place in late January. This year President Obama will give the State of the Union Address on Feb. 12. The speech is the president's opportunity to not only report on the state of the nation -- on such matters as the economy and foreign policy -- but to also lay out the Administration’s policy agenda for the ...

The Budget and Accounting Act of 1921 requires the President to submit his budget request for the upcoming fiscal year no later than the first Monday of February. Recently, however, the White House's Office of Management and Budget (OMB) announced it will delay the scheduled Feb. 4 release of the president’s fiscal year 2014 budget request until early March or later. According to the House Budget Committee, the Obama Administration has missed the deadline on three of its four previous budget submissions. By comparison, President George W. Bush missed it once out of his eight budgets, and President ...

On Jan. 23 the Housed passed legislation to deal with the debt ceiling – the legal limit Congress places on its own borrowing. If the federal debt reaches the debt ceiling, the government is unable to borrow additional funds to support continued operations, triggering a government shutdown and default on existing loans. Raising the debt ceiling doesn't grant the government permission to spend money on new things – instead, it lets the government borrow additional funds to support spending that's already been authorized. Congress has the authority to raise the debt ceiling as needed.The legislation – known officially as the ...