What's in the CR Deal for Congress?
With a vote as early as tonight, we quickly ran the numbers
It appears that a deal may be coming together to move a CR-minibus with a vote as soon as this evening. Follow these links for the bill text and explanations for the Continuing Resolution, the Legislative Branch Act, the Agriculture/ Rural Development, FDA Act, and Military Construction / Veterans Affairs Act.
No human could read and understand these bills in the short time between their public release on the Senate Appropriations Committee website and their consideration by the Senate. The legislation won’t be available on Congress.gov, for example, until today’s votes are finished. This problem is fodder for a deeper discussion, but one we will leave aside for the moment.1
Our parochial interests are with the Legislative branch. A skim of the legislation does not reveal any measures that protect Congress’s power of the purse.2 The ability to control federal spending is a legislative prerogative, the interruption of which by the White House/ OMB, through illegal impoundments and other shenanigans, is to us the key reason why we wanted Congress to pick this fight at the beginning of the year.
Let us hope the Senate has something up their sleeve in reopening the government through the end of January and passing a few full-year appropriations bills at the same time. For our money, we’d use the Financial Services General Government appropriations vehicle as a mechanism to restrain the White House / OMB from any efforts to undermine Congress’s spending powers. The CR being considered here would be the preferable vehicle to doing so, but alas.
What’s inside the Legislative Branch Appropriations bill? You may recall our write-up this past June that compared the House and Senate bills, explaining how the House’s bill would lay waste to GAO through a 49% funding cut — including removing its power to bring a lawsuit concerning impoundments — as well as significantly harm the Library of Congress.
It appears that cooler heads have prevailed. This bill would fund GAO at last year’s levels, the Library as well, and provide significant new funds for member security. What follows are the highlights.3
The Senate
Overall, the Senate reduced its funding level from the Senate passed amount of $1.50 Billion to $1.46 Billion, a $35 Million cut, which is the same level in the President’s budget. The biggest places receiving the reductions are Contingent Expenses (e.g., committee oversight), reduced by $32 Million from the Senate passed level to the White House Budget-request level.
In addition to its regular appropriations levels, the Senate has appropriated additional funds for member protection, and they are significant. $75 Million to the SOPOEA (the Members’ personal office accounts) to pay for “security enhancements and services,” such as protective security for Senators and their residences. It also includes $18.5 Million to the Sergeant at Arms, of which $5 Million is to coordinate Member security programs; $10 Million for security for state offices, and $3.5 Million for residential security systems.
There is also a very lengthy new provision concerning notification for disclosure of Senate data. It appears to significantly expand the definition of covered data to include information held personally by senators acting in their personal capacity, requires providers to notify the Senate whenever an outside party seeks to access the data, and creates a private cause of action for violation of this law (including against the U.S. government.) Government surveillance of the Senate is a serious issue — we know the government has inappropriately surveilled senators and their staff in the past, and we can expect the current administration to try to obtain information in any way possible against their perceived political enemies. There’s no time for me to evaluate how well this law is written, although it does point to the Congress’s prior unwise decisions to allow the government to have some of these authorities in the first place.
The House of Representatives
The House of Representatives increased spending on itself by nearly $100 Million from the bill favorably reported by House appropriators, to just above $2.084 Billion. That number, incidentally, is exactly what appeared in the White House Budget request, suggesting strongly that the favorably-reported House appropriations number was just for show.
Committee employees receive an $11 Million bump over the House Committee-reported number, but it’s still nearly $20 Million below the White House Budget Request. House Salaries, Officers, and Employees received a $99 Million bump from the House Committee-reported level, with a $100 Million increase for the Sergeant at Arms. This amount is essential for member security, and the Sergeant at Arms is required to brief the House within 30 days on implementation.
Joint Items
Looking at joint items, we see:
Capitol Police funded at $852 Million, which is close to the $855 Million passed by the Senate. The Capitol Police continue to get double-digit percentage increases in funding.
The Government Accountability Office, a major target of President Trump’s ire, is flat funded from last year’s level of $811 Million — way below the $933 Million it requested. However, this is well above the 49% cut favorably reported in the House, which represents a threat against the GAO for doing its job. The House’s provision removing GAO’s authority to sue for impoundments also is not present in this bill, although I’m sure GAO is well aware of the House’s views on that issue.
The Architect of the Capitol gets a $113 Million boost beyond that passed by the Senate, to $811 Million, which is less than its $1.1 Billion request. $10 Million of the boost is for the Capitol Power Plant.
The Congressional Budget Office gets a $3 Million bump from the Senate passed level to nearly the level reflected in the White House budget request.
The Library of Congress is flat funded at last year’s level, which only sounds like bad news until you realize it’s a rejection of the 10% proposed cut by the House.
The Government Publishing Office is funded at $132 Million, just below its $135 Million request.
The book “Legislating in the Dark” discussing this problem and its causes in depth.
We prefer to take our time with these kinds of complex posts, but tempus fugit. Please forgive us our typos, grammatical errors, and occasional mistakes.
Some quick reminders: the Senate-passed its Legislative branch bill overwhelmingly; the House did not move its bill to the floor. When we reference the White House Budget request, it is not the amount of money the White House requested for Congress, but rather the amount of funds that the relevant component of Congress requested for itself, which was compiled into the request from the president.