One Down in the House: The MilCon-VA appropriations bill passed the House on Wednesday in a mostly party-line vote. This bill is what Chairman Tom Cole calls the House's "opening bid" for the FY25 process, which will include a post-election negotiation with the Senate. The remaining 11 appropriations bills in the House will reflect that same process. Some may not recognize this phenomenon – it's called "regular order!"
Next week, the House will continue moving through its ambitious markup schedule, with Ag-FDA and CJS slated for subcommittee markups, and State & Foreign Ops, Homeland Security, Defense, FSGG, and Legislative Branch bills next in line for full committee markups.
The House will take a two-week hiatus on floor consideration of appropriations bills to consider the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) and will resume the week of June 24, when Homeland Security, Defense, and SFOPs will be considered by the full chamber.
The House Sticks to Defense Caps: The House Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense approved their $833 billion defense legislation on Wednesday. The draft bill implements a one percent increase in funding over FY24 levels, remaining in line with the debt ceiling agreement from last year. Notably, the President's $300 million budget request to arm Ukraine was left out of the legislation. After the meeting, Ranking Member DeLauro argued that there should be a one percent increase for non-defense programs as well – an argument that has been echoed by Democrats in both chambers for the last few months.
Senate Plans for a Busy Fall: While the House is currently dominating the appropriations headlines, we haven't forgotten about the Senate! Word on the street is that Senate markups could begin in July, with emphasis on the less controversial bills first and others possibly held until after the August recess. The Senate topline numbers are still under negotiation, but they are likely to be an increase over the House's topline numbers. At the end of the day, we expect most of this activity to be ironed out more thoroughly after the election. And, in keeping with the notion of regular order, this would serve as the Senate's opening bid.
What We Will Be Watching: The House Budget Committee is planning a hearing on June 13thtitled "Medicare and Social Security: Examining Solvency and Impacts to the Federal Budget." While appropriators often receive the brunt of the criticism around federal spending, it is worth noting that they control less than one-third of the federal budget with the non-discretionary spending (mostly entitlement programs and interest on the debt) accounting for a much larger share of the federal budget. Our team will be watching this hearing closely for discussion on federal spending, particularly as we run up against another debt ceiling expiration.
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