Agencies That Stand to Lose the Most Under Senate Spending Plan

A Senate committee on Thursday laid out proposed spending totals across all 12 areas of government for fiscal 2016, calling for domestic spending cuts of nearly 7 percent compared to 2015 levels.

Along party lines, the Senate Appropriations Committee approved spending levels in line with those required by the 2011 Budget Control Act. Democrats called those levels insufficient and sought to boost spending by 7 percent, but their efforts fell short.

Committee Chairman Sen. Thad Cochran, R-Miss., said calls from President Obama and the panel’s Democrats to set aside BCA caps ignores the responsibilities of the committee. Obama has threatened to veto any spending bill that keeps spending in line with the funding restrictions.

“[Obama’s] budget is based on the premise that any increase for Defense spending should be matched dollar for dollar by an increase in non-Defense spending,” Cochran said. “That sounds like a bumper sticker rather than a budget.”

The Republican spending levels -- which will now be sent to each jurisdiction’s subcommittee to create 12 distinct, line-by-line appropriations bills -- hit the State Department and foreign operations the hardest. Agencies whose budgets fall within the appropriations categories of agriculture; defense; financial services and general government; interior and the environment; and labor, health and human services and education all would face cuts under the spending guidelines (though the Pentagon controversially would receive a spending boost through the Overseas Contingency Operations fund).