U.S. Appropriations FY2025: The Power of the Purse Unhinged - Early Days

Crap, I do NOT have time to get into this today. But alas, the news waits for no man

Agriculture Subcommittee released their bill up to the big House Appropriations for markup.

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News courtesy of The Hill: https://thehill.com/homenews/house/...ches-anti-abortion-rider-in-new-funding-bill/
News courtesy of Politico: https://www.politico.com/live-updates/2024/06/10/congress/abortion-poison-pill-out-00162586

Both articles are focused on the one piece of good news: there is no rider for restrictions on mifepristone. At least, ahead of any upcoming court decisions. For context, THERE WAS a rider for that last year that helped tank the bill before it could get its legs under it.

However, all is not well... Agriculture has been a source of absolute strife for the past couple of sessions, and it looks to be about the same this year. Because there are PLENTY of terrible things being done, just not that one. And there is always the chance (certainty, in this case) that someone in the GOP will put forward an amendment adding that rider back in, either during markup or when it heads to the house floor.

From Politico:

Politically vulnerable GOP incumbents have been pressing their leaders to leave out the abortion pill language and other controversial social policies, which prevented House leaders from passing five of the 12 funding bills last year. And House Appropriations Chair Tom Cole (R-Okla.) said he had “a frank discussion among the Cardinals” who chair the 12 funding subpanels about reconsidering the policy restrictions that derailed last year’s attempts.

“Let the chips fall where they may. But I'm hopeful that we'll realize that some of the things that didn't work last time probably won't work this time,” Cole said.

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The Hill just rehashes statements from the press releases and summaries.
And you know what, I can do that too! JOURNALISM! ****

****not journalism

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Like I stated, I do not have the time right now to do this properly, but at least I can provide sources.

Agriculture

Links:
Appropriations Subcommittee for Agriculture Press Releases:

• GOP: https://appropriations.house.gov/ne...5-agriculture-rural-development-food-and-drug
  • GOP Summary: https://appropriations.house.gov/si...-administration-subcommittee-bill-summary.pdf
• Democrat: https://democrats-appropriations.ho...elopment-fda-bill-increases-costs-jeopardizes
  • Democrat Summary: https://democrats-appropriations.ho...ministration and Related Agencies Summary.pdf
  • Democrat Fact Sheet (talking points cheat sheet): https://democrats-appropriations.ho...les/evo-media-document/Ag FY25 Fact Sheet.pdf

Some very quick highlights (lowlights?) from perusing the summaries:

• Our "friends", the riders eliminating DEI positions, banning critical race theory, allowing discrimination against LGTBQ+ folks in the name of "religious freedom", and climate change executive order denial? Their back again. I haven't dived into the text (TIME!), but I expect the language to be extremely similar.
  • I will be posting examples of these riders later, pretty much in full. Everyone should see the language and the coordination involved. Even if they are struck out of the legislation in the end game later this (next?) year, this will NOT be the last time we see these.
• Republicans are continuing their assault on the FDA.
• And for some fucked up reason, the GOP seems to feel that allowing the use of electric shock devices on children with developmental issues should still be a thing.
• The GOP summary and release reads like a wishlist for big agricultural/pharmaceutical/tobacco business concerns.
• There are cuts to almost all major programs, across the board, including rather substantial ones to WIC and SNAP.

Ugh.
A deep dive (at least from me) will have to wait.

Okay, a bit of a deeper dive into Agriculture, as I have some time this morning. The summaries are quite long, and the bill itself is 126 pages.
Because I forgot to link it?

Bill text: https://docs.house.gov/meetings/AP/...Y2025-Agriculture-FY245AgSubcommitteeMark.pdf

Diving down into the summaries, I'm going to try and flag the different messages put out for the same items.
For example, I'm just shy of 100% certain these two statements are paired.

So, to dig into the bill text, let us see what we can find.

From pages 96 and 97. Section 729.
I have edited this slightly to remove line numbers and clean up the formatting. No changes to the actual text have been made. Bold emphasis is mine:

SEC. 729. None of the funds made available by this or any other Act thereafter may be used to write, prepare, or publish a proposed rule, final rule, or an interim final 8 rule in furtherance of, or otherwise to implement or enforce the final rule entitled ‘‘Transparency in Poultry Grower Contracting and Tournaments,’’ published by the Department of Agriculture in the Federal Register on November 28, 2023 (88 Fed. Reg. 83210 et seq.), the final rule entitled ‘‘Inclusive Competition and Market Integrity Under the Packers and Stockyards Act,’’ published by the Department of Agriculture in the Federal Register on March 6, 2024 (89 Fed. Reg. 16092 et seq.), the advanced notice of proposed rulemaking entitled ‘‘Poultry Growing Tournament Systems: Fairness and Related Concerns,’’ published by the Department of Agriculture in the Federal Register on June 8, 2022 (87 Fed. Reg. 34814) (also identified in the White House Office of Management and Budget’s Fall 2023 Unified Agenda of Regulatory and Deregulatory Actions as ‘‘Poultry Grower Payment Systems and Capital Improvement Systems (AMS-FTPP-22-0046),’’ RIN 0581-AE18), the rulemaking identified in the White House Office of Management and Budget’s Fall 2023 Unified Agenda of Regulatory and Deregulatory Actions as ‘‘Unfair Practices, Undue Preferences, and Harm to Competition Under the Packers and Stockyards Act (AMS-FTPP-21-0046),’’ RIN 0581-AE04, or any subsequent substantially similar rulemaking effort, except that funds may be used to, and the Secretary of Agriculture shall, withdraw or rescind any such proposed rules, advanced notices of proposed rulemaking, and any such rules that may have been finalized, and discontinue and provide notice of closure to affected parties of any investigations or enforcement activities pending under said rules.

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Oh boy.

First, our favorite form of 'making law with money' is back! "None of the funds" provision, right up front.
Second, this section is the only one that discretely calls out the Packers and Stockyards Act.
Third, we have four different rules.

Links!
1. https://www.federalregister.gov/doc...in-poultry-grower-contracting-and-tournaments
2. https://www.federalregister.gov/doc...ntegrity-under-the-packers-and-stockyards-act
3. https://www.federalregister.gov/doc...rnament-systems-fairness-and-related-concerns
4. https://www.reginfo.gov/public/do/eAgendaViewRule?pubId=202310&RIN=0581-AE04

The very, VERY quick run down is that these rules do (generally) two things: greater transparency and attempt to foster greater/more equitable competition by addressing systemic and long standing problems between large companies and smaller operations.

I am NOT an expert in this area. The last time I was on actual farm was (count the one, add the zero, multiply by..) yeah, never. But that's my layman's read of the rules that would be receiving no funding in this section. And it pairs well with both the Democrat and Republican statements - it's the only section that really covers all of the relevant bases, and it doesn't exist in the bill text from the FY24 minibus (H.R. 4366). And it ABSOLUTLEY tracks that the GOP would be eliminating or preventing rules that help small farmers over much larger agri-business concerns.

Some related news from just a few days before the bill came out of committee:

The federal government has been rolling out changes to the protections given to livestock and poultry producers, as well as how these farmers operate. In turn, these changes prompted various meat companies and industry groups to lobby against certain provisions. In some cases, industry groups backed lawmakers seeking to do away with the new rulings altogether.

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The now-finalized updates to the Packers and Stockyard Act include addressing discrimination of livestock and poultry growers based on race, sex, age, or disability from the companies that purchase their animals or pen the contracts by which producers abide. Another update, known as “Transparency in Poultry Grower Contracting and Tournaments,” requires sharing information between large chicken companies and the independent, contract farmers that raise chickens for consumption.

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The changes are a step in the right direction to protect producers over businesses, said Mike Stranz, National Farmers Union vice president of advocacy.

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“Decades of consolidation and unchecked vertical integration have created a livestock market that tips the scales away from family farmers and ranchers and puts much of the power in the hands of just a few multinational corporations,” Stranz said in a statement provided to Investigate Midwest. “USDA is rebalancing the scale and providing fairness for farmers and ranchers.”

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And that right there is why the Republicans are so keen to keep this from happening.

edit: And those small farmers are, more than likely? Going to vote Republican anyway.

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And that's all I really have time for today. But I wanted to get something out, sort of establishing what "deeper" dive means to me. Picking out something that is brought up by both sides of th aisle, and then really digging into what it actually means.

Anyway, much, MUCH more to come over the intervening months.

Oh, and a small update to Financial Services... there is no update. Still no release from the Democrats. Very, very strange.

Shavano said:

Makes you wonder what would happen if farmers and ranchers read these bills, doesn't it?

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Yep.

Because I'm pretty sure that, AT MOST, they'll hear the talking points and see commercials put out by PACs that are heavily invested into by those same massive business concerns.

I can't get to OpenSecrets** at work ( ) to check the donors, but I'd be VERY curious to see the Agriculture Subcommittees donor rolls for the past year. I may do that when I get home.

**(nonprofit that REALLY digs into campaign finance, wikipedia link for a quick summary)

DarthSlack said:

Actual family farms have been on the decline for ages and clearly from this bill, Republicans want to make sure they stay down.

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When I was reading the reasons the rules were coming into existence? It was ALWAYS due to complaints or concerns from SMALL FARMERS. I'm convinced the Republicans don't actually want "farmers" in middle-America. They want serfs.

Pick your historical downtrodden agricultural class of choice, really. That was the point I was trying to make.
The particulars really don't matter - you can point to elements of each and say, "that is what Republicans want!" and make a pretty decent argument.

I'm willing to bet the further I dig into the Agriculture bill, the more and more and more of this sort of this will become extremely apparent.

As I stated, I took a gander at opensecrets.org and paid particular attention to the Agriculture Subcommittee.

I wanted to see if it would be obvious where the money was coming from, and what policies might be trying to be pushed, basically what can be inferred from following the money back to it’s source.

I’m not an investigative journalist, so I figured this was going to be an exercise in futility. Let’s see if I was right..

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Democrats

Republican


A couple of things jump out at me.

• The section I highlighted in the previous post? Preventing funds from rule enforcement? Most of those rules targeted the poultry industry or specifically called out large poultry business practices as detrimental and needing regulation. And looking at the spectrum of numbers and dollar amounts, I’d be willing the impetus for that section was a joint Harris, Valadao, and Moolenar. With enough spread across the rest of the Republicans to grease the wheels.
• Sanford is pulling in WAAAAAAY more Agriculture sector money than the rest of the Democrats, all of which are seeing paltry amounts from the sector. The second highest dollar amount heading to Democrats is less than the Republican who is seeing the LEAST money from the sector. “Big Business” knows who their friends/puppets are.
• I should really do some digging into what in the hell is going on with Sugar, because holy smokes were they throwing money at EVERYONE.

Anyway, I thought that was interesting, and adds some context to this whole thing.

News:

Homeland and State/Foreign Operations went through markup of the full Appropriations committee and was passed. They both go the Rules committee where the real amendment shenanigans begin.

My reaction?
It’s my weekend, and you can’t make me!

Homeland press releases:
GOP (also includes markup amendments): https://appropriations.house.gov/ne...ves-fy25-homeland-security-appropriations-act
Democrat: https://democrats-appropriations.ho...ee-democrats-unite-against-funding-bill-fails

State & Foreign Operations press releases:
GOP (also includes markup amendments): https://appropriations.house.gov/ne...state-foreign-operations-and-related-programs
Democrat: https://democrats-appropriations.ho...ublican-state-foreign-operations-funding-bill

I glanced very quickly through the summaries, and it dawned on me that I haven’t highlighted something. The Republican party is doing it’s damndest to codify via appropriations that nothing can be declared as mis-, dis- or mal- information. It’s in the State budget bill. It was in Defense. I’ve seen it mentioned in Homeland, and Legislative Branch. Chalk it up as another thing to go find relevent sections in the bill text to extract the actual language. Because just like all of the other repeat offenders (CRT, DEI, LGTBQ+, anti-climate, etc), even if the relevant sections/text is removed in the end? We will see these again, and having a knowledge of what the text looks like (and the avenues taken by Republicans in this manner) can only be helpful.

Just out of curiosity, how did you come to that conclusion, @dragongoddess? There is nothing in the details of your quoted/linked Fourth Mission (basic read, the FAQ, etc) that would preclude providing services to anyone under the guise of humanitarian efforts as part of requested assistance to a disaster.

More, if Section 260 is in reference to Mission IV, how come it didn’t exist in last years‘ bill? And why is it in the middle of a bunch of Republican developed riders added to this year’s text specifically targeting the ‘culture war’ issues that they’ve been pounding on this entire appropriations cycle?

I’m struggling to see the dots connect here.

Just a very, very brief update:

Defense passed out of markup, up to the Rules committee. And there is so much stuff in there that are repeats of FY24’s first attempt that the Senate excised out during conference, it’s astounding.

Markup appears to be underway for Financial Services / General Government. That one might take awhile, so many potential sticking points.

Holy cow. I honestly didn’t think they’d be able to push this fast. But with overwhelming majorities of… let’s call them ”like-minded” individuals… in the Appropriations Committee, the Republicans are actually pushing forward at a decent clip. To the tune of between a week and three weeks faster than last year. Considering the size of the legislation, that one to three weeks faster pace is actually impressive.

For reference, status tables for FY24 in 2023 and FY23 in 2024 - you want to look at the Committee Approval (House) Column for the dates when this step of the process occured during those years.

The bad news is that they are pushing through so much dreck that won’t pass the Senate - probably won’t even be brought to the floor - that this is an effort that is going to end up being performative. Allows the GOP to put out releases and statements saying they passed a budget out of the House but the (evil Democrats in the) Senate are holding up funding and shutdown and yadayada. You can see the writing on the wall (and the talking points on Fox) now.

All to say, both Financial Services & General Government AND Legislative Branch made it out of the full committee today.

Releases (including defense) - it’s just the Republican side (apologies), but the releases towards the bottom have a list of amendments passed and denied during markup.

DEFENSE: https://appropriations.house.gov/ne...ttee-approves-fy25-defense-appropriations-act
FINANCE & GG: https://appropriations.house.gov/ne...y25-financial-services-and-general-government
LEGISLATIVE: https://appropriations.house.gov/ne...es-fy25-legislative-branch-appropriations-act

And in case you are curious, where is the Senate at in all of this right now? They’re still having hearings at the subcommittee level, going over the FY25 Administration Request. Looking to be in no hurry at all.

And that’s all from me today - it’s still my weekend until tonight, darn it, and I’m going to enjoy what little of it remains!

Tonight may be a good time to dive into the difference between Authorization and Appropriation.

The House passed H.R. 8070 (congress.gov) the NDAA (or National Defense Authorization Act) today, largely along party lines with the usual slate of GOP culture war nonsense amendments.

Here’s The Hill: https://thehill.com/policy/4722107-ndaa-defense-bill-passes-house/

Ahead of Thursday’s votes, Democrats warned GOP leaders against loading the bill with so-called poison pills — Rep. Mikie Sherrill (D-N.J.), a Navy veteran, argued that the conservative amendments “cheapen” the defense bill.

“They are choosing to use that National Defense Authorization Act to shove their extremist culture war agenda down the throats of the American people,” Sherrill said.

The partisan bickering broke out over the NDAA after the House Armed Service Committee advanced the annual defense policy bill in a bipartisan 57-1 vote last month. That bipartisan flair, however, ended after the House Rules Committee teed up votes on a series of culture war amendments, and lawmakers cleared some of them.

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Yep.

Two things:

1) This is the annual authorization, and does not have any actual budget authority. It’s the “you can spend this much on these approved things” bill that is passed annually for Defense. A lot of authorization acts are annual. Other authorization bills, like for the FAA, run for multiple years. The actual appropriations bill that makes money available is still back a step at the Rules committee.

2) Yet another dead as-is bill in the Senate. But some of the nonsense will inevitably get through as Democrats horse trade to try and get the most egregious stuff back out.

But that’s all I’m really going to say about the NDAA specifically. See my disclaimer on Defense related items on the first page of the thread.

References first!

H.R.8580 - Military Construction, Veterans Affairs, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2025 (text at congress.gov)
Texts of bills before Appropriations Committee Amendments - Appropriations committee website, all pdf's:
Homeland
State and Foreign Operations
Legislative Branch
Financial Services and General Government (FSGG)
Defense
Agriculture - (note: This is the only one to have only come out of the subcommittee.)

I figured today, I'd go pull out some of the bill text that I've seen crop up again and again and again.

First up: allowing bigotry in the name of "sincerely held religious belief, or moral conviction".
Note: I have edited this slightly to have it be represented in a slightly more readable format - the text itself is unaltered except for my BOLD^# sections in green, blue, red, etc, with associated reference numbers.

From H.R. 8580 - MilCon and VA. This is located under Title IV - General Provisions.

Sec. 416. (a) In General.--Notwithstanding section 7 of title 1, United States Code, section 1738C of title 28, United States Code, or any other provision of law, none of the funds¹ provided by this Act, or previous appropriations Acts, shall be used in whole or in part to take any discriminatory action against a person, wholly or partially², on the basis that such person speaks, or acts, in accordance with a sincerely held religious belief, or moral conviction³, that marriage is, or should be recognized as, a union of one man and one woman⁴.
(b) Discriminatory action defined.--As used in subsection (a), a discriminatory action means any action taken by the Federal Government to--
(1) alter in any way the Federal tax treatment of, or cause any tax, penalty, or payment to be assessed against, or deny, delay, or revoke an exemption from taxation under section 501(a) of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 of, any person referred to in subsection (a);
(2) disallow a deduction for Federal tax purposes of any charitable contribution made to or by such person;
(3) withhold, reduce the amount or funding for, exclude, derminate, or otherwise make unavailable or deny, any Federal grant, contract, subcontract, cooperative agreement, guarantee, loan, scholarship, license, certification, accreditation, employment, or other similar position or status from or to such person;
(4) withhold, reduce, exclude, terminate, or otherwise make unavailable or deny, any entitlement or benefit under a Federal benefit program, including admission to, equal treatment in, or eligibility for a degree from an educational program, from or to such person; or
(5) withhold, reduce, exclude, terminate, or otherwise make unavailable or deny access or an entitlement to Federal property, facilities, educational institutions, speech fora (including traditional, limited, and nonpublic fora), or charitable fundraising campaigns from or to such person.
(c) Accreditation; Licensure; Certification.--The Federal Government shall consider accredited, licensed, or certified for purposes of Federal law any person that would be accredited, licensed, or certified, respectively, for such purposes but for a determination against such person wholly or partially on the basis that the person speaks, or acts, in accordance with a sincerely held religious belief or moral conviction described in subsection (a).

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This EXACT SAME provision is in:
Homeland Security, Section 547. It's under Title V General Provisions, and the section itself is on page 88 of the pdf.
Legislative Branch, Section 213. It's under Title II General Provisions, and the section itself starts on the very bottom of page 44 of the pdf.
FSGG, Section 641. It's under Title VI General Provisions, page 154.
Defense, Section 8145. Title VIII General Provisions, bottom of page 137.
Agriculture, Section 758. Title VII General Provisions, page 114.

Let's break this son-of-gun down.

1. "none of the funds" - Oh boy. Gotta love setting the law by removing funds from any exisiting rules, office, regulations, etc. No money, no enforcement. No enforcement, the rule/law is rendered moot.
2. "to take any discriminatory action against a person, wholly or partially" - So, no funds to take action AGAINST a person. Discriminatory is defined later down, but you could also interpret this as 'disciplinary'.
3. "such person speaks, or acts, in accordance with a sincerely held religious belief, or moral conviction" - If the person such action would be taken against does ANYTHING according to their 'religious beliefs' or 'moral conviction'. As we'll see, this means 'speak or act like a bigot against a particular group'.
4. "marriage is, or should be recognized as, a union of one man and one woman" - and there we go. This last turn of phrase that establishes the group of people that the bigot is acting or speaking about in a negative manner.

The next subsection (b) outlines the disciplinary (or further) activities that are now prohibited - what the funds are no longer available for. And finally, subsection (c) says that the Feds shall consider previous disciplinary actions taken against a bigot to be rendered moot in the eyes of the law.

The long and short of it? People can deny applications for gay couples to do [thing] because their gay and married, can speak out against the very concept of marriage in the LGTBQ+ community, and generally act like a bigot while wearing a cross and saying 'praise be', and the law says that is fine.

State and Foreign Operations doesn't have one of these. Pretty much ALL of the stuff in State and Foreign Operations dictates how funds will be spent outside of the United States. But I'm aboslutely CERTAIN we'll see this pop up in the rest of them.

In addition, every single time a Democrat will put forward an amendment during markup AND to the Rules committee to remove this section. At the Appropriations Committee, the vote will be to deny that amendement. And the Rules committee won't let it get out onto the floor to be voted on by the whole house - it'll die as a 'submitted amendment'. [/sup]

Authorizations Versus Appropriations: A Primer
-By Diabolical, aka "That F-in guy on the internet who gets way into this crap."
Caveat - this is my interpretation of how this process works following research I conducted several months ago. The references on the bottom are not the only ones I used, but they are the least esoteric.

edit: Shit. Now we're going to end up talking about Budget Resolutions. Fark. Fark Fark Fark Fark. Not right now though. I'm busy. Doing.... things!

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ALL spending at the federal level in the United States breaks down into two different categories, and which category is which is determined by the interaction of two OTHER things with a third thing.

Confused? Don't be. This is probably going to be the easiest thing to conceptualize. Or it won't be and I'm sorry.

Our five terms are in bold, and are as follows:

Budget Authority, aka "The Money":
When you see the term "funding" in talking points, statements, etc? This is what they are talking about. You can break this down into it's component terms. "Budget" being the actual funds themselves, and "Authority" being the ability to spend those funds as established in-and-through federal law. Dig far enough and deep enough, you'll find obligations and outlays, which are pretty common terms used outside of the federal government and mean pretty much exactly what you think they do. For those who don't use those terms: obligation is the bill, outlay is the check to pay it. There are rules and regs dictating how and why and such. You got questions about those, ask, and I'll dig, but I'm not going too far into that here.

Authorizations, aka "The Permission":
Authorization Acts do EXACTLY what is on the tin - this is legislation that says X can do Y. The Department of Defense to fund the Navy to build fancy-pants canoes. NASA gets to do Cool Shit (tm). The Federal Aviation Administration can hire, pay, and do all the stuff for Air Traffic Controllers. Things like that. Authorizations tend to set the limits for a given program or agency. Z amount of dollars. R amount of time. Q amount of people. For purposes M, N, O, P, and explicitly NOT J.

Authorizations MAY or MAY NOT provide budgetary authority. Just because an agency or program is "Authorized" doesn't mean it's "funded" in the same piece of legislation. This ties into mandatory versus discretionary spending, which we'll cover a bit further down.

Appropriations, aka "Payroll":
What we see the government argue about ALL THE FUCKING TIME. This is the legislation setting aside funds for the explicit purpose of being spent on programs and agencies. This is the explicit Budget Authority for thing, if not provided in another act.

Mandatory Spending, aka "We're Not Arguing About This At The End Of The Year... Hopefully":
Mandatory funding is between 60% and 70% of the federal budget, and includes the vast majority of entitlements. Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, VA payments, SNAP, things like that. It's called "Mandatory" because the total funding amounts for a given time period are set via two primary methods.

1. Via a complex system of eligibility rules and various formulae. See Social Security.
2. In the law referenced by the Authorization Act itself. You start seeing the terms "hereby appropriated $OMGMONYLOL" and sources for that funding (for example, an explicit callout to a specific clause somewhere in 26 USC, the wonderful(?) tome of US domestic tax law), that means the federal government is GOING to spend the money on this program/agency/obligation.
3. Wait, you said two, Dia! You lying son-of-a!!!! ... Yeah, you got me. Some Authorizations are written in such a way that
   (a) said agency and program MUST be funded, but
   (b) those funds will be provided for in a separate appropriations act. SNAP is like this, where it's MANDATORY that the government provide this entitlement, but the exact amount is appropriated in the yearly budget deal.

Discretionary Spending, aka "The Political Football":
Mother. Fuckers. Here we are, at the end. This is what the big kerfuffle and government shutdown talk is all centered around.

• First, Discretionary Spending comes down to this: Authorization Acts that do not have Budget Authority need their funding set into law via a seperate Appropriations act, typically on a (fiscal) yearly basis. The Authorization establishes the permission for this agency to operate and that program to exist, and so on, but sets funding aside to be argued about later.
• Second, this means that the Permission and The Money are decoupled, and won't necessarily match up. Congress can decide that nah, they aren't going to fund thing up to the authorized level or HELL YES we're going to fund that EVEN MORE.
• Third, Welcome To Shenanigans Land.

These are the 12 Appropriations Acts (now - there have been less and more over the years) that are passed on a yearly basis to "fund" the federal government.

So the big question is if Mandatory Spending accounts for 60-70% of the budget, why does the Discretionary Spending shenaniganry cause shutdowns? Fun answer - the obligations of the agencies and programs can be Mandatory. Administrative costs (to include things like "salaries") are almost all Discretionary. So, send out the paychecks and do the critical functions, but don't pay the people who have to do it - until later. We'll get into that in early September.

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SECRET APPROPRIATIONS ACT BONUS ROUND!
Appropriations are, by chamber rule and convention, usually only provided for programs and agencies that have been previously authorized. However, Appropriations acts can be passed for "unauthorized" purposes and serve as their own Authorization. Unlike the big Authorization or Appropriations acts setting the vast majority of federal spending, these puppies are for special purposes and usually crop up outside of the normal argumentative world of budget "negotiations". Welcome to the wonderful world of Supplemental Appropriations. Examples? Ukraine Aid. COVID stuff. Disaster relief above and beyond what is established in current law.

To summarize?

• Mandatory Spending == Authorization with Budget Authority. The Permission and The Money, however it happens to get it.
• Discretionary Spending == Authorization + Appropriations(Budget Authority). The Permission to do a thing, and The Money coming from Payroll to do it.

Some fairly easy-to-parse references:
[1] Common Budgetary Terms, Congressional Budge Office, December 2021.
https://www.cbo.gov/publication/57660

[2] The Appropriations Process: A Brief Overview, Congressional Research Service, May 2023

NEWS!

From The Hill, various conservatives are discussing ideas to preemptively enact a Continuing Resolution before September 30th. The length varies, but the general consensus is to push funding fights back to next year when, presumably, Trump has won in November and is in office. At which point, chaos reigns.

Link: https://thehill.com/business/appropriations/4723356-conservatives-funding-fight-2025/

“You could go Sept. 30 to March 31,” Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) said Wednesday, adding, “I don’t think lame ducks ought to be controlling the power of what we tried to get done in December.”

“You give the president time to get in, gotta deal with the debt ceiling, maybe not immediately, but you’ve got to start getting everything organized to deal with the debt ceiling, to deal with what we’re going to have reconciliation and deal with the spending issue.”

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“Why are we going to get let potentially lame duck politicians set spending in this country for another year with $35 trillion in debt? I don’t think we should do that,” Rep. Byron Donalds (R-Fla.) said.

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Tom Cole, (R-OK), chair of the House Appropriations committee says he understands the idea, but pushes back on it providing as much leverage as others seem to be projecting.

“I was around here in 2017 when we tried that, and we had the House, the Senate, obviously President Trump won,” he said. But Republicans still “did not have more leverage because you still have the filibuster in the United States Senate.”

“We forced [Trump] to have to sign bills that he did not get to negotiate … Frankly, they didn’t even have an [Office of Management and Budget] director at the time we got him done,” he said. “I don’t think you do that to a new president, and honestly, I don’t think you do it to a new Congress.”

“They’re going to be asked to vote on bills that they had nothing to do with, they had no chance to understand,” Cole said. “None of them will likely be on the Appropriations Committee on either side. It’s just unfair. So, this Congress should do its work within its two year time frame.”

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Very, very contrasting messages there. Regardless, I don't think that the FY25 spending is going to get done this year.

Looking back at the previous shifts in congresses, here is what you get (and yes, I made a spreadsheet, yes this is a picture, no, I don't want to talk about it):

Note: that purple band for the senate at the turn of the century (cringe) was a weird time.

If you look at the Congress ### transition years? It's a better than 50/50 odds by a decent margin that it's going to take longer than the calendar year. And the final bill being passed hasn't happened before 30 September at all in this time period going back to '98 (which is as far back as the CRS has good information for on their website).



So that's fun. More fun facts: There was 21 CRs for the FY01 budget in 2000. 21. Bananas. And on three occasions full year continuing resolutions were passed for multiple functions. For FY11, it was a full year CR for everything.

Finally, here is Appropriations Committee Ranking Member DeLauro's (D-CN) reaction, presumably with those streaks she dyes in her hair flashing "scoffing purple":

Rep. Rosa DeLauro (Conn.), the top Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee, last week called the pitch to delay a funding deal into next year “unacceptable.”

“He’s not going to win. It’s unacceptable. We’ll do it in the lame duck. We’ve done it in December in the past. We’ll do it again,” she said, before pointing to how the last annual funding fight played out in Congress that ended in March.

“I mean, six months into the fiscal year. That’s not governing,” she said. “That’s what we come here to do.”

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There was an article in the Government Executive* about how the pay raise proposed for feds is still at 2.0% in the FY25 FSGG bill so far.
And that's all I'm going to say about it because OF COURSE I WANT A BIGGER PAY RAISE. Just including it to show that if you want to know where civilian employee pay raises live? It's in the Financial Services and General Government bill.

Anyway, here's the link to the article:

*mediabiasfactcheck says Government Executive leans left-center, but is highly factual in it's reporting. I'd never heard of it before, so I had to look it up.

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And the final bit of news that calls back to FY24 shenanigans, shines a light on FY25 nonsense, and highlights yet another instance where Republicans will say one thing and then do the exact opposite when it comes to voting for legislation. This time, it's about election security grants, aka funding the Help America Vote Act (HAVA), part of the FSGG bill.

From the Rhode Island Current:
Link: https://rhodeislandcurrent.com/2024...funding-for-making-sure-elections-are-secure/

The article is specific about two things:

Republicans routinely cut election security funding out of the budget entirely (last year and this year), while Democrats propose a number in the lots range. Last year it was $75 million compared to $0 from the GOP - they settled at $55 Million. This year, FSGG left the Appropriations Committee with... $0. For election security. From the party that has been screaming about election fraud for the last four years.

Yep.

The second thing the article does (and I think is very good to highlight and might be something worth cross posting into the presidential election thread): State election officials are pissed that funding for HAVA is incredibly inconsistent, which makes planning for, oh, I don't know presidential elections that are doomed to be called "rigged" "fraud heavy" and a million other things under the sun by the very people removing the funding.

Some choice quotes:

From Gideon Cohn-Postar, legislative director at Issue One & Issue One Action:

Cohn-Postar said that several states have sought to make their HAVA grants last more than one year by spending less than they receive, or saving the money up for bigger projects.

Louisiana, for example, hasn’t spent any of its election security grant funding since 2018, in preparation for overhauling its election system. New Hampshire passed a state law that collects the grant funding in an endowment and then only spends a portion of that each year.

But that “careful” budgeting and uncertainty about how much grant funding Congress might provide in the next year has led federal lawmakers to look at states’ use of the grants skeptically, Cohn-Postar said.

Congress, he said, sometimes uses states’ “careful, thoughtful budgeting as an excuse to not give them money.”

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I'd say replace that "sometimes" at the end with "every time".

And from around the country:

Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows said during an interview the grants “have been incredibly important, especially in the absence of sustainable elections funding from the federal government.”

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Washington state Elections Director Stuart Holmes said in an interview he plans his annual budget around not getting HAVA election security grants and is pleasantly surprised when Congress does provide the funding.

“Through my entire career, there’s only been two rounds of HAVA that were significant investments into elections,” Holmes said. “So it’s a great surprise to get an extra million dollars at the beginning of the year. But it does make it pretty much impossible to prepare and plan for anything if you have to spend it.”

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JP Martin, deputy communications director for the Arizona secretary of state, declined States Newsroom’s request for an interview with the secretary of state, offering only to provide written responses to questions on HAVA election security grants.

Martin wrote in an email that “fluctuating levels of federal funding have significantly impacted our strategic planning and budgeting.”

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New Hampshire used the initial big block of funding from Congress to meet the requirements of the original HAVA, and then use the rest to set up an Election Fund of their own to build out and ensure security. It sounds like they use the inconsistent grants now for specific upgrades via vendors or pen-testing.

I found the article a fascinating look into the downstream ramifications of a very, VERY small section of a very large bill, and how it can have... let's call them "dramatic" consequences down the line.

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Finally, a new reference (to me at least) I'm going to try and read this summer. I might not, depending on time availability.

Principles of Federal Appropriations Law, also known as the Red Book, is GAO’s multi-volume treatise concerning federal fiscal law. The Red Book provides text discussion with reference to specific legal authorities to illustrate legal principles, their application, and exceptions. These references include GAO decisions and opinions, judicial decisions, statutory provisions, and other relevant sources.

Click to expand...

Oh boy.

DarthSlack said:

I guess we're lucky they're thinking of a CR instead of letting the Freedom Caucus burn the place down.

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I think that's just because the reporters didn't ask them what they thought, if I'm honest.

Homeland
Well. This is probably going to be awful.

Deep dives continue. As always, lets begin with links.

House Appropriations Press Releases:

• GOP: https://appropriations.house.gov/ne...ves-fy25-homeland-security-appropriations-act
  • Summary: https://appropriations.house.gov/si...land-security-full-committee-bill-summary.pdf
• Democrat: https://democrats-appropriations.ho...ee-democrats-unite-against-funding-bill-fails
  • Summary: https://democrats-appropriations.house.gov/sites/evo-subsites/democrats-appropriations.house.gov/files/FY25 Homeland Security Summary.pdf
  • Fact Sheet: https://democrats-appropriations.house.gov/sites/evo-subsites/democrats-appropriations.house.gov/files/Homeland Security FY25 Fact Sheet.pdf

Bill text: https://docs.house.gov/meetings/AP/...FY2025-AP00-FY25HomelandFullCommitteeMark.pdf

I'll quote the "key takeaways" that both sides put out in their press releases - the summaries are very lengthy, and I'd highly encourage (as always) that you give them a once over if this is an area of government of interest to you. The Republican side is pulled from the press release, and the Democrat side is from the Fact Sheet, which is effectively the talking points.


And yes, the requisite nastiness from Republicans is also there. DEI, CRT, LGBTQ+ discrimination, climate, etc.

There are some things just in the brief summaries here that REALLY get my gourd up. That entire last section of the Republican talking points? On the one hand, how is that "supporting American values and principles"?? But... yeah. I do think it's absolutely telling that it is a clear illustration of the current reactionary right's values, though.

• NO identifying misinformation - better to hide the grift!
• NO abortions for people we are detaining because they are looking for a better life!
• No acting like a decent human being to fellow human beings because they are brown and they speak a language other than English as their first language!

Pulling some things that concern me from both sides that might slip through the cracks on first inspection:

• From the Democrat side of the house the decreasingfunding for FEMA's National Urban Search and Rescue program. I don't know anything about this program but can make inferences from its name. I want to learn more - need to dig further into that.
• Eliminating the Ombudsman from Immigration Detention. What The Actual Fuck, Republicans?!? But, again, it makes perfect sense if you scew it to eliminating any way for people in those areas to have any sort of avenue for recourse.
• Preventing the consolidation of the Department HQ makes sense too, from the GOP standpoint. Consolidation in this way would likely increase efficiency and allow for a better functioning bureacracy and department. COMMENTARY: The GOP doesn't ACTUALLY want any part of the government to function better - that is what their votes indicate, even if their statements are the exact opposite.

And I'm about to run up to the 10,000 character limit, but a quick glance at the amendments shows the majority disregarding all amendments to try and remove the more heinous parts of the bill.

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I know we have some folks out there that interact with FEMA and other related Homeland agencies. If you would like me to do a deeper dive into the text to find out funding levels, and how they correspond to the requested levels from the Administration and last year? Let me know, I'll see what I can wrangle up.

Well put, @Shavano. Very well put indeed.

Thank you!

This stuff gets exhausting when you stare at it for too long.
I’m going to hit the summaries for Homeland this afternoon after I take a nap (shift transition weekend, no sleep for me!), see if anything strikes me enough to go dig into the actual text.

Digging further into Homeland;

I wanted to find out what the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s National Urban Search and Rescue program was.

Pulling from that, a brief description of what each Urban Search and Rescue task force does:

Each NIMS Type 1 US&R task force is composed of 70 members specializing in search, rescue, medicine, hazardous materials, logistics and planning, including technical specialists such as physicians, structural engineers and canine search teams. The task forces can split into two NIMS type 3 US&R task forces with 35-members each to conduct around-the-clock search and rescue operations in 12-hour shifts.

Click to expand...

These folks go to disaster sites in urbanized areas to search for survivors in things like collapsed buildings, along with a myriad of other duties. They have water environment ops tams. These folks are awesome.

As a reminder, what prompted this was from the Democrat Fact Sheet:

Decreases funding for the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s National Urban Search
and Rescue program and slashes investments in risk reduction and strategies to address
climate change.

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And I can't for life of me find any direct reference for that in the text. Not for the US Code section where it lives in Title 42, not for the name of the system, etc. And I just went weaseling through a decent amount of Title 42 and couldn't find it at all. (Late Edit: I mean diving into Title 42 at the sections proscribed in the Homeland bill regardless of context in the bill, seeing if there were provisions that tangentially affect this program - still couldn’t find anything)

So... I have no idea.


Otherwise, Shavano did a nice job breaking down the Republican position. Going through the summary in more detail just puts a finer and more detailed point on it. The policy riders continue to point to a GOP set-list:

More Wall. More CBP and ICE officers. More detention center beds.
Less money for pretty much everything else.

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Rules Committee has said that amendments are due for consideration soon for the following bills (this is typically a week before the committee meets to consider sending a specific bill to the House floor) :
Homeland - June 18th (for consideration the week of June 24th) (link)
State & Foreign Ops - June 18th (for consideration the week of June 24th) (link)
Defense - June 20th (for consideration the week of June 24th) (link)

Baenwort said:

If you see anything in Homeland about Nuclear MWD funding please let me know.

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I’ll do some digging this evening (hopefully).

Clarification, Nuclear MWD = Megawatt-day? So we’re talking about fuel utilization, right? Any specific area of focus? Existing programs, research and development, disposal of spent fuel and efficiencies? And wouldn’t this more likely fall under Energy? Or am I misinterpreting the acronym?


Edit:
Trying to narrow down sections that might obliquely be related, and might just be a dollar amount in reference to another Act that I have to go look up. There is a LOT of that whenever it's anything technical, so a tightening of focus would be nice so I'm not spelunking around inside of U.S.C. title and sections like an avid and insane cave diver.

Okay, so I think what we’re looking for is funding for the Countering Weapons of Mass Destruction Office inside of Homeland?

The initial look at it is; it doesn’t go nearly as granular in the appropriations bill as you are looking for. Which isn’t atypical, really - a lot of things don’t. But I have a lot more to run through.

For reference, this where I’m starting, then digging further for when I need to. I don’t have the time to dig into it at this exact moment, but I hopefully should have some time tonight.

References:
FY25 bill (so far): https://docs.house.gov/meetings/AP/...AP00-FY25HomelandFullCommitteeMark.pdf#page95
HR 2882 for enacted FY24 numbers: https://www.congress.gov/118/bills/hr2882/BILLS-118hr2882enr.pdf#page95
Dept. Of Homeland Security FY2025 budget-in-brief (“brief” being 121 pages): https://www.dhs.gov/sites/default/files/2024-04/2024_0311_fy_2025_budget_in_brief.pdf#page95
President’s Budget Request supplemental for Homeland Security, FY25: https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/dhs_fy2025.pdf

Re: @Baenwort's request:

The primary office for this in Homeland is going to be the Countering Weapons of Mass Destruction (CWMD) Office. This gets its own little segment inside of Title IV (Research, Development, Training, and Services) of this year's Homeland bill.

Some things to keep in mind: This is top level stuff only. We'll have to dig deeper into the supplemental documents for more details.

CWMD Top Line Budget Breakdown




So that's our topline numbers. Cuts across the board and overall, with one notable exception - the FY25 bill-so-far has $50 Million more in R&D than the request. Don't get your hopes up, it's pretty easy to tell where that comes from.

From the GOP Appropriations Committee - Homeland summary:

Countering Weapons of Mass Destruction Provides $361.3 million for Countering Weapons of Mass Destruction, which is $48.1 million below the Fiscal Year 2024 enacted level and $56.7 million below the President’s Budget Request.
• $50 million for the BioDetection for the Twenty-First Century effort, which will further the capabilities of the current, outdated BioWatch program.
• $16.7 million for the Radiation Portal Monitor Replacement Program.

Click to expand...

And there is the extra $50 Million.

So what else can we discern? This is from the FY2025 Dept. of Homeland Security Budget in Brief, which was effectively the Administration Request:



You can toss the middle column. It's just gone - this budget request was released before the FY24 appropriations bills were finalized, so they just took the FY23 numbers and said, "How about that again!". And given they zeroed out all of the portable detection systems, didn't increase the RPM stuff (either on the admin request or the Bill-So-Far), and the only major increase is focused on bioterrorism? I'm thinking that they didn't do anything with the information that you posted about, Baenwort.

This can be down to how new the report is - it may simply be too new to be incorporated into the FY25 appropriations at this point.
OR! Money is being added in other places I've been unable to find. But considering the topic at hand? If it was going to be added to Homeland, it'd probably be right in here.
Or, more nefariously, it came up during the hearings and it got smacked down in the subcommittee before it ever got sent up for markup.

Now, this isn't necessarily the end of the road.
1) It can still be amended - amendments were due into the Rules Committee today for deliberation next week, to be put forward to be voted on when the bill hits the House floor sometime shortly after that.
2) It can be amended in the Senate version.
3) It could be included in some form of Supplemental Appropriations bill.
4) It could show up once this puppy is re-written whenever the circus really gets going this fall, after the first set of CRs/shutdowns/election/delay to the new congress/whatever.
5) Something I haven't thought of.

I hope that report as a 'champion' in the appropriations committee, otherwise it might be a while before any action is take. If any action is taken.

Best I could do. At least with the information I have in appropriations....

OH! OH! One last thing:
The money for Procurement/Construction/Improvements, R&D, and Federal Assistance? That is funded annually, but the funds from that appropriation are available for THREE fiscal years.
For example, from the Bill-So-Far:

19 RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT
20 For necessary expenses of the Countering Weapons
21 of Mass Destruction Office for research and development,
22 $110,938,000, to remain available until September 30, 23 2027.

Click to expand...

It's procured this year, but it remains available for use and spending for FY25 (Oct24-Sep25), FY26 (Oct25-Sep26), and FY27 (Oct26-Sep27).
That throws a bit of a wrench in the whole thing, but not enough of one to account for what that report is calling for.