Two Budgets for Valentine’s Day

The President’s Budget Request

On Monday, February 14th, the President unveiled his budget request for the coming year, Fiscal Year (FY) 2012, which will begin on October 1, 2011. This is a document with a lot of numbers and details, but as the Director of the Office of Management and Budget said recently, it is also “an expression of our values and aspirations”— kind of like a special valentine.

We are still going through budget details, but we can tell you this much: some of our aspirations have been crushed. As forecasted, the President’s budget freezes discretionary funding at FY 2010 levels for many programs, while the Pentagon will receive $696 Billion, or 56% of the overall amount for discretionary spending.

Congress Considers This Year’s Spending

This week there is also another suitor with something to offer. Congress never completed its process for this year’s FY 2011 spending appropriations, so even though we are almost halfway through this fiscal year (which began October 1, 2010), this week the House will debate and vote on spending for the rest of it.

The House plan for this year deeply cuts funding for most everything except the Pentagon budget. House Republicans are aiming to cut $100 billion from FY 2011 spending. These draconian cuts will be devastating to many programs that are serving basic needs in our communities. Cuts to domestic programs will add pressure to strained state and local budgets and are likely to damage the fragile economy now and cripple our global competitiveness for years to come.

Drastic cuts to international spending for foreign aid and other vital programs are also proposed. These cuts will take away many of the security tools that defense experts, including Secretary of Defense Gates, say that we need. One area of particular concern is funding for programs to address nuclear terrorism. These non-proliferation funds would also be slashed under the House plan.

Budget Priorities Week and Spring

With both budget-setting activities ongoing, this week is sure to bring a record level of debate about our nation’s budget priorities, which will likely continue for the coming months. Both the House and Senate will have to agree on the FY 2011 spending package by March 4 or else pass another stop-gap Continuing Resolution and come back to the FY 2011 spending later this spring. Congress will also begin consideration of the FY 2012 budget that the President has now submitted. Looming over all of these processes is the growing debt. Congress will have to vote on whether and by how much to raise the debt ceiling sometime this spring. Spending and budget priorities will be very much intertwined with that vote.

For more information on how to get involved in the budget debate, visit WAND ACTION CENTER using the links to the left. On the Action Center we will provide detailed directions on how you can be part of the process.

For more information, check out these resources:

• Article published  by NPR "Obama, GOP Vie for Upper Hand on Budget Cuts".
• WAND's budget pie for the President's Request for  FY11  here.
• WAND's guide of the federal budget process here.
• The National Priorities Project examines the numbers mentioned during the State of the Union address here.