FY2014 Budget Approved in Senate, House Committees

This week, the Senate and House Budget Committees approved separate budget resolutions, which provide spending blueprints for FY2014.

Senate

On March 14, the Senate Budget Committee approved, 12-10, the FY2014 budget resolution (as-yet-unnumbered). According to the committee summary, the measure would decrease the deficit by $1.85 trillion over ten years.

The summary assumes that the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA), also known as “Obamacare” (P.L. 111-148), would not be repealed. The resolution would protect funding for programs that help increase access to women’s health care and additional funds for the recently reauthorized Violence Against Women Act (P.L. 113-4). Citing the challenges of “securing equal pay for equal work and balancing the demands of work and family,” the budget resolution indicated strong support for the Paycheck Fairness Act, the Fair Pay Act, and the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) (p. 86).

The measure would protect funding for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, formerly known as the food stamp program) and would reverse the cuts to the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) and low-income housing, as imposed in sequestration, the across-the-board spending cuts enacted by the Budget Control Act (P.L. 112-25) (p. 88). Providing health care to veterans, including women veterans (p. 96), also is a top priority outlined in the FY2014 budget.

House

The House Budget Committee approved, 22-17, its version of the FY2014 budget resolution (as-yet-unnumbered) on March 13. According to its committee report, the House budget resolution proposes $4.6 trillion in deficit reduction over ten years.

The budget assumes the repeal of the PPACA and would allow states to “customize SNAP to address the needs unique to their citizens.” The budget would reinstitute TANF work requirements (see The Source, 3/8/13) (p. 15 of the committee report). The resolution also would implement the reforms to job-training programs as proposed by the SKILLS Act (see The Source, 3/15/13) (p. 14).

While the measure would fully fund the Contributions to International Organizations and Programs account within Function 150, which includes mandatory payments to international organizations with which the United States has signed treaties, the report notes that “it does not support voluntary contributions to the duplicative international organizations and programs account” (p. 57).

The resolution would eliminate the Social Services Block Grant program, which the committee finds to be duplicative of other programs that fund child care, health care, and employment services (p. 98).

The measure would target higher education financial assistance to those who are “truly needy” and would “adopt a sustainable maximum award level for [the] Pell [grant program]” (p. 14). The cuts implemented by sequestration would be extended.

Funding cuts to health programs (Function 550) include repeal of the Medicaid expansions and exchange subsidies enacted in the PPACA.

The following chart details the proposed total spending in budget authority by the various categories, or budget functions.