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Bypassed Budget Cuts
Volume XIV No. 28: July 10, 2009
July is check-writing season for Congress. The House and Senate churn out spending bills almost daily in a rush to make the October 1st payment date for the start of fiscal year 2010.
In May, we wrote about 121 proposed cuts worth $17 billion in the President’s budget. Now that Congress has put pen to paper, we thought it would be worthwhile to see if they have taken a knife to the cuts.
Much work remains, but a quick perusal of the spending bills passed thus far by the House and Senate indicates the President would fit right in on the Washington Nationals roster because his batting average is looking pretty weak. Congress responded to his efforts to cut the heavily earmarked and duplicative Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Water Infrastructure State and Tribal Assistance grants ($145 million in FY09) by providing $150 million (Senate) and $160 million (House) for the program.
The President also took some swings at the Agriculture budget, but was again stymied. The $24 million cut to the Watershed and Flood Prevention Program was met with a $20 million increase by the House and $24.4 million in the Senate. This program has become little more than a parochial slush fund and does a poorer job meeting flood prevention needs than Federal Emergency Management Agency and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers programs.
Bells are ringing over the most prominent of the cuts – the weapons system reductions and eliminations proposed by Defense Secretary Gates. The crystal ball is still foggy on those, but storm clouds are gathering: While we won’t see the defense spending bills until next week, both the House and Senate Armed Services Committees pushed to restore funding for programs including the F-22 fighter jet, Joint Strike Fighter alternate engine, and missile defense.
The President has had some mixed successes. The House went along with his call to eliminate funding ($5 million in FY09) for the Department of Agriculture’s Public Broadcasting grants, opting to shift the work to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, but the Senate plowed forward with another $5 million. In the Department of Homeland Security, with the proliferation of GPS, the President wanted to stop spending $36 million on the old LORAN-C radio navigation system (President Bush tried the same the last few years). The House went off course and restored the funding, but the Senate allowed the Coast Guard Commandant to make the decision and potentially pull the plug on this World War II technology in 2011.
Cutting the budget is hard work. But by consistently offering cuts and justification for them, baby budgetary steps can be made. In addition, lawmakers can try to enforce cuts via amendments. Rep. Patrick Murphy (D-PA) tried to do just that, offering to restore the President’s cut to the corporate welfare Market Access Program in the Agriculture spending bill. Unfortunately he was cut off at the pass and not allowed to offer an amendment on the floor.
We recognize all too painfully that these cuts are not anywhere close enough to balance the books. But if we are ever going to reach that budgetary nirvana, we have to start somewhere. And cuts big and small, early and often, are a critical part of the solution.
Let us know what you think.
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Fiscal Year 2010 Earmark Databases
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The Department of Energy's FutureGen Inititative
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