The Washington Insider Report

Without a doubt this is one of the most difficult budget years Capitol Hill has faced in decades. 
Instead of the standard budget that projects revenue and spending for the next five years, Congress passed a weak measure that restricts spending by the Appropriations Committee.

The “budget enforcement resolution” Democrats substituted for a traditional budget resolution sets discretionary spending for FY2011 at $1.12 trillion, about $7 billion less than Obama’s. It also sets a goal of cutting deficits to the point where revenues equal all spending except for interest payments on the debt.

With less money provided to the Appropriators, more federal agencies face potentially significant budget cuts.

Recently, House Appropriations Chairman David Obey (D-WI) warned groups seeking to increase funding in education, health and labor programs that those programs could be cut by an additional $3.5 billion from President Barack Obama’s budget request. Since the National Institutes of Health (NIH) makes up 1/5 of the entire Labor-Health and Human Services-Education (LHHS) Appropriations bill, the small increase provided for the NIH in President Obama’s budget is in real jeopardy.

At the same time, the National Science Foundation fared well during the House Commerce-Justice-Science Appropriations (CJS) Committee consideration of its bill. The CJS bill funded the NSF at President Obama’s full budget request, but the Appropriations panel made significant funding changes within the agency. According to the House passed CJS bill, NSF would receive $7.4 billion, an increase over the FY10 enacted level of $498 million, or 7.2%. Within that total, the subcommittee reduced funding for Research and Related Activities—from the $6 billion requested to $5.96 billion—and increased Education and Human Resources, from the $892 million requested to $958 million.

Congress is supposed to pass 12 individual Appropriations bills by October 1, 2010.  Few if any of the FY2011 funding bills are expected to be approved separately by Congress; rather, most are likely to be bundled into an omnibus package after the November elections.