Civilian agencies could lose billions to DoD

A $19 billion boost in defense spending would be offset by a $25 billion cut in civilian agency spending, under fiscal year 2000 budget levels approved by the House Appropriations Committee Wednesday.

Amid a philosophical debate over the budget and appropriations process, the committee allocated $538 billion in discretionary spending among the 13 appropriations subcommittees. One subcommittee chairman said the allocations are unworkable and will lead to another last-minute negotiating session with the administration in September.

Appropriations Committee Chairman Bill Young, R-Fla., said the allocations stay within the $538 billion statutory cap on total FY2000 discretionary appropriations set in the 1997 Balanced Budget Act, and are configured so the House can pass some of the smaller bills, such as Agriculture and Treasury-Postal, "and then deal with the difficult ones later." Those include Labor-HHS, which is slated for a $10 billion cut, and VA-HUD, which is looking at a $6 billion cut.

A frustrated Labor-HHS Appropriations Subcommittee Chairman John Edward Porter, R-Ill., said, "I don't believe I can get 218 votes for [the bill] with these numbers," and renewed his plea for congressional leaders to make "a reasonable adjustment in the caps now, on a bipartisan basis" so appropriators have realistic spending targets and are not forced at year's end to cede responsibility for writing their bills to the administration.

Appropriations ranking member David Obey, R-Wis., called the allocations "ludicrous" and condemned the entire process of adopting a budget resolution that sets out numbers the Appropriations and Ways and Means committees must translate into legislation as "detached from reality."

Obey called for members to rethink the entire budget process, but rejected the bipartisan budget reform proposal to be considered Thursday in the Budget Committee.

Obey is one of several leading House Democrats who signed a letter by Budget ranking member John Spratt, D-S.C., opposing the budget reform bill offered by Reps. Jim Nussle, R-Iowa, and Benjamin Cardin, D-Md. The letter asserts that the Nussle-Cardin bill "would weaken fiscal discipline and allow the enactment of large tax cuts ... [that] would dissipate the surplus and jeopardize programs the American people strongly support."

Fiscal 2000 Discretionary Spending Allocations
(in billions)

Source: House Appropriations Committee