Subscribe Blog RSS FeedOn late Thursday afternoon the Senate Democratic leadership abandoned their nearly 2,000 page Fiscal Year 2011 12 federal agency appropriations “omnibus bill” after several Republicans, who had originally hinted towards voting for the bill, announced that they would no longer support the legislation. Conservatives ultimately pulled back their support due to the greater than $8 billion in earmarks incorporated in the legislation. The current continuing resolution (CR) was set to expire midnight on Saturday; therefore, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) worked with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) to produce another temporary stopgap funding measure that will keep the federal government running into early next year at current FY 2010 levels. This next CR is rumored to expire on or near February 18, 2011 when the Republicans will control the House of Representatives and have more power with six additional new senators in the minority in the Senate, which will give them greater leverage to force spending cuts in FY 2011.
The $1.27 trillion omnibus bill blended together all 12 of the regular appropriations bills into a single piece of legislation that Democrats had hoped to pass with just a couple of days worth of debate. It was designed to bankroll the daily operations of the government for the budget year that started October 1, funding roughly one-third of the federal budget that Congress must pass each year.
Well, BVA members might remember that the veteran service organizations all worked for years to get legislation enacted last year that would provide VA health care with Advanced appropriations each cycle so that the veterans who depend upon there health care from VA would not be negatively impacted by these forever delays in enacting funding for each federal agency at the start of the budget year on October 1st that had occurred in 19 of the last 22 years. Well the loop hole is that the Continuing Resolution (CR) covering FY 2011 then does not allow for “advanced appropriations for FY 2012” because for this process to work, it requires that the regular appropriations bill must be passed each year for VA. In other words, even though because the FY 2010 appropriations, enacted last year, funded the VA for FY 2011 on estimated health care services, there won’t be funding for FY 2012 passed this year since the FY 2011 budget was never passed.
Worse, in the effort to cut all discretionary funding programs across the board, the coffee shop rumors are flying that in late January the House of Representatives will drop bill to reduce all federal agency funding to the FY 2008 levels. A 22 percent cut across the board for everything, leaving a mess since obviously the VA has hired a lot more health care staff the last three years to improve access and health care services and would not have the funds to cover those positions under this budget gimmicks.
1. THE AX MAN COMETH. The next time Congress hashes out government funding beyond a continuing resolution could get interesting. House and Senate Republican leaders say they want to reduce non-security discretionary spending back to 2008 levels, which would mean a cut of about 22 percent overnight — the deepest in decades. What Republicans haven’t said is which programs should get the ax, and by how much. Only about $16 billion can come from rescinding unspent stimulus money and remember the $ 1 trillion deficit or red ink leaving a big hole to plug. And while many conservatives might love to cut energy, education, and safety-net programs, they would have no choice but to hack away at more basic programs: law enforcement, tax collection, immigration enforcement, scientific medical research, space exploration, environment, agriculture, transportation, etc. It should make for a lively intraparty debate because every one here likes to cut some other congressman’s special program, but then they want to protect there own programs funded by the federal government that benefits there farmers, researchers, space centers, border security, transportation highway project, or new airport runway!
No one yet is sure how this is going to all fly, but we here are working and talking with the other veteran service organizations to figure out how we will respond if these rumors of massive cuts take place with various legislation being introduced for the rest of the fiscal budget year of FY 2011. We at BVA have had a lot of success in the past four years with major legislative accomplishments, and new benefits and health care programs for disabled veterans and now will face some very uncertain times in the new year.
Thanks,
Thomas Zampieri Ph.D.
Director Government Relations
Blinded Veterans Association
