House Budget Resolution Passed

Early Thursday morning (1 am) May 18th, House Republicans adopted the Fiscal Year 2007 (FY07) House budget resolution by a vote of 218-210.

The House budget resolution sets total discretionary spending at $873 billion, the same as the President’s request. The Senate budget resolution sets the amount at $883.3 billion (includes Specter- Harkin increase of $7.1 billion for L-HHS-ED and $3 billion for home heating).

House moderate republicans have made assurances that the Labor-HHS-Education appropriations bill will include an increase of $4.1 billion, with an additional $3 billion added when the two Houses meet to finalize a budget resolution bill.

Education Funding - House Action

The House Budget process has become a battle ground of conflicting priorities. Congressman Mike Castle (R-DE) had been fighting for a $7 billion amendment to the budget process to move money to the Labor-HHS-ED spending committee to bring their allocation up to what they had two years ago. It is unclear if this amendment will move forward when the House votes on its budget resolution Thursday, May 11th.

However, the House appropriation’s committee has voted its own allocation plan without the budget processes guidance. They increased the allocation to the Labor-HHS-ED spending committee by about $4.1 billion over last year’s level.

The next steps are two fold. First the budget resolution will need to move forward in the House and then to work out a joint resolution with the Senate. Parrallel to this, the House appropriators will be moving their spending plans from the overall allocation levels to making decisions about the line-by-line spending on programs.