As of today, the House is scheduled to be in session 8 days and the Senate is scheduled to be in session 10 days before the current FY17 continuing resolution (CR) expires on April 28.
House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-WI) and top Republican Senators said that an FY17 wrapup spending package would start in the House. He also dismissed concerns about the government shutting down when the current CR expires even though House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) said that there are still 200 unresolved issues on the FY17 spending bills. While Ryan also said that President Trump doesn’t want a shutdown, some White House staff speaking on background have said that the President isn’t concerned about a shutdown as he believes that Democrats will bear full responsibility for it if it does occur. White House Spokesman Sean Spicer said yesterday that they don’t want the government to shut down, but that they do want to make sure that the President’s priorities are being funded. One of those priorities is the supplemental funding the President requested for funding the border wall. House Homeland Security Appropriations Subcommittee Chairman John Carter (R-TX) suggested that there would be some funding in the bill for the border wall, while House and Senate Democrats have said that funding for the border wall would be a deal breaker and are requesting that it be a separate vote.
The Administration recently submitted a request to Congress for an additional $33B in FY17 for the Department of Defense and border security. They suggested that Congress cut $18B in discretionary programs to help offset those costs. Last week, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) provided to Republican appropriators an outline of $17.935B in FY17 reductions in the 9 following appropriations bills:
Agriculture – $1.070B
Commerce Justice Science – $1.222B
Energy & Water – $1.757B
Financial Services – $210M
Homeland Security – $131M
Interior – $714M
Labor HHS – $7.256B
State Foreign Operations – $2.879B
Transportation HUD – $2.696
With only five months left in the fiscal year, the reductions would have a disproportionate impact on these programs. Many of the proposed FY17 cuts are targeted at programs that are also targeted in President Trump’s FY18 budget outline. More details on the proposed cuts can be found at:
https://www.vantagepointstrat.com/fy17-reduction-options-from-white-house-3-23-17/