Discretionary spending in the House Budget resolution -- what am I missing?
![[Post New]](/jforum/templates/default/images/icon_minipost_new.gif){kind=icon}
Anonymous
|
I'd posted this in the Political Discussion forum but got no responses. Perhaps someone here who is familiar with economic issues and Congressional approps can comment?
I know there are other distractions (the Zelenskyy meeting, the English Official Language EO etc.) but these are just hide the ball tactics. The real issue is always the big spending cuts to pay for the tax cuts to billionaires. That said, it seems that the bulk of the spending cuts at least per the House budget resolution will fall on Medicaid, student loans, TANF and food assistance and some unspecified bits that add up to 1.8T over 10 years. However, if you look closely at the tables and the breakdowns, the outlays on most things are essentially the same as FY25 (or FY24, with minor inflationary adjustments) and continue to increase modestly. Source: https://bipartisanpolicy.org/explainer/whats-...e-budget-resolution/. So, why is everyone assuming that the sky is falling and agency budgets are going to be slashed to hitherto unseen levels in FY26? Even international aid is not reduced by anything that this admin is claiming (USAID, smaller State department etc). I know there is some chatter about impoundment but none of that is likely to come to pass. The WH (Vought) will present a ridiculous budget, Congress will more or less appropriate most things as before, and slash some of the income/health/food security programs. What am I missing? |
Anonymous
The negotiations that are still to come. |
Anonymous
|
link does not exist.
|
Anonymous
OP here. Looks like the link was moved. Here is the link to the table https://docs.house.gov/meetings/BU/BU00/20250213/117894/HMKP-119-BU00-20250213-SD003.pdf The negotiations are quite likely a prayer by the House that the Senate will not slash to such an extent. Also, I am sure that given past trends, Republicans fully expect to lose the House in 2026. So they have at most one approps bill to write (and we all know how that will go). The Senate has already signaled that they will use the current policy baseline (i.e. TCJA is the state of affairs, so extending it will not change anything and any spending cuts, however small, will only reduce the deficit per current policy. So again, DOGE or not, where are the big cuts to Agency budgets? |
Anonymous
| The budget passed by congress is meaningless. The sky is falling because Musk is demolishing agencies, firing federal workers, and terminating grants and contracts, all of which is based on funding already approved by congress. So if congress passes a new budget with the same funding as last year for ED or NOAA or any other agency it means nothing because of the illegal slashing of government by DOGE. |
Anonymous
| The executive branch right now is NOT executing to the spending levels congress already appropriated, halting funds to things they don't like. What makes you think they will follow anything congress says. That's the issue. |
Anonymous
All of this. The budget will be meaningless as far as the executive branch goes. And they are taking the impoundment issue all the way to scotus. They are already impounding funds. They will keep doing it. |
Anonymous
Again, you have to seriously believe that impoundment is on the table. If so, we have issues which will have far greater repercussions. I am not sure the Admin has votes in the SC in their favor - Roberts and ACB are likely nos, so that makes a 5-4 decision against them, at best (and I'm not sure they can count on Gorsuch/Kavanaugh either), compelling them to spend. This is saber-rattling. |
Anonymous
They are already impounding funds, even for work performed! What are you talking about?? |
Anonymous
What the Muskrats are doing right now is impoundment. Many of the ED programs they cancelled a few weeks ago were required by statute. That meant nothing when they slashed and burned them. We’re already there, budget agreement or no. |
Anonymous
| Someone had to bring the suit first. There have been SC decisions already halting what DOGE is doing in some cases, are those being followed? |
Anonymous
The suits are already in process. With multiple TROs that are not being followed. Most haven’t gotten to SCOTUS and the time it will take to get there is going to cause maximal damage that will be very hard to recover from. |
Anonymous
Roberts froze the order in the USAID funding suit which required the government to pay for work that has ALREADY been performed. OP, this is already happening. They don’t care what’s in the budget for XYZ agency. They’re going to cut half the staff and the statutory mission anyway. Did you see what they said about CFPB? They intended to cut it to “five men in a room with a phone.” Do you think any agency can perform its function with five people? That’s what they think of agencies. |
Anonymous
They hem and haw and pretend they’re doing a “review” of funding but they are blatantly defying court orders at this point. They know it’s important to pretend and it seems like it’s fooling people. |
Anonymous
I am not sure that the specific contracts were statutory. Is there a list of actual authorized/appropriated spending that has been cancelled/impounded? It is just 4 months into the fiscal year. |