VA Budget in Limbo

Top on the Agenda: CR for 2009

VA BUDGET IN LIMBO AS CONTINUING RESOLUTION MAY FUND GOVERNMENT INTO 2009

A Continuing Resolution would keep VA funding at current level until Congress passes new budget.

By David Clarke and Liriel Higa

Democrats have avoided doing much appropriations work this year, but when Congress returns Monday there is one must-do item on the agenda: keeping the government from running out of money.

The new fiscal year begins Oct. 1, and none of the fiscal 2009 appropriations bills have been enacted. Either chamber has passed only one — Military Construction-VA (HR 6599), approved by the House on Aug. 1.

So Congress will have to clear legislation — a continuing resolution (CR) — this month that will keep the government funded until, probably, sometime early next year, after a new president takes office. The timing of the CR, however, could be affected by who wins the presidential election and whether there is a lame-duck session after the election.

Democrats may also push for a second economic stimulus plan that could affect a CR, but the prospects of such a plan appear dim in the face of White House opposition. Disaster relief for Midwest flooding, hurricanes, wildfires and drought could end up hitching a ride on either a stimulus package or the CR.

Details of the CR probably will not be finalized until later this month, as Democrats gauge potential political land mines, such as the debate over oil and gas drilling.

As of now, Democrats are planning to make the CR straightforward by keeping funding levels for government programs and agencies at their fiscal 2008 levels, with some exceptions. Republicans are warning against adding extraneous items to the bill.

President Bush has threatened to veto domestic spending bills that exceed his request, and Democratic leaders decided early this year that they would rather wait to finish their annual spending work until a new president takes office than have veto fights with the administration.

The plan to wait has drawn brickbats from Republicans, although their record of completing appropriations work on time when they controlled Congress was spotty.

Congress may complete work on the fiscal 2009 Defense and Military Construction-VA spending bills before the end of the month, and either bill could become a vehicle for the CR. The House Appropriations Committee will mark up its version of the Defense bill on Sept. 9 and the Senate panel also could mark up its bill soon.

But three weeks is a tight timeline for completing these bills, especially because they are competing with other items for time on the Senate floor.
Tweaking the Numbers

A CR generally extends the current fiscal year’s funding levels, as well as the language included in the spending bills that provided that funding, for as long as the CR lasts.

The White House sent documents to Capitol Hill on Sept. 5 outlining what exceptions to this scenario the administration would like to see in the CR.
Top on the Agenda: CR for 2009

For instance, it requested that the Census Bureau and veterans’ medical programs be funded at the amounts the president requested for fiscal 2009 rather than at current levels.

It also requested that the CR not include a moratorium that prevents expanding oil and gas drilling off the Atlantic and Pacific coasts, which is renewed annually through the Interior-Environment spending bill. Republicans want the moratorium left out this year as they try to highlight the issue of high energy prices.

GOP lawmakers in both chambers have said they may oppose a CR that continues the ban.

Democrats plan to put forward a separate energy plan this month, and how that debate is resolved will help determine how much the drilling debate complicates enactment of the CR.

A straightforward CR generally does not match a previous year’s emergency spending, which is supposed to be for one-time costs. The administration is proposing that about $2.5 billion in fiscal 2008 emergency funding also be included in the CR, arguing that it will be needed again in fiscal 2009.

This funding includes $328 million for the Department of Homeland Security’s Secure Border Initiative to reduce illegal immigration; $332 million for Immigration and Customs Enforcement for things such as detainee bed space and personnel costs; $148 million for fighting wildfires; $110 million for unemployment insurance administrative costs; and $206 million for security costs associated with embassies and diplomatic staff around the world.
Stimulus Talk

On another spending front, Democrats still want to enact a second stimulus. In February, Congress enacted a stimulus with bipartisan and presidential support, with rebate checks as its centerpiece (PL 110-185).

On Sept. 5, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi , D-Calif., seized upon the news that the unemployment rate had increased, to 6.1 percent in August, as evidence that another stimulus package is needed.

“The New Direction Congress will soon act on a second economic stimulus package and a comprehensive energy plan that will create new American jobs, invest in renewables, increase domestic production, make America more energy independent and break free of the failed Bush economic policies that John McCain and Republicans in Congress have rubber-stamped for far too long,” Pelosi said in a statement.

On Sept. 5, House Ways and Means Chairman Charles B. Rangel , D-N.Y., and panel member Jim McDermott , D-Wash., announced they would introduce legislation to extend unemployment benefits.

To enact a stimulus package, Democrats will need the cooperation of an administration that has not embraced the idea. White House press secretary Dana Perino said Sept. 5 that the stimulus plan enacted earlier this year was having “the strong impact that we wanted it to have.”

“One of the keys of that stimulus package was that it be stimulative, and we don’t think that we need to consider a second stimulus right now,” she added.

Original Story: http://www.cqpolitics.com/wmspage.cfm?parm1=5&docID=news-000002944779