Dejargonator: Appropriations
by Gem P. Daus, Director of Policy
March 24, 2005
Within minutes of the Senate passing its budget resolution a week ago, I received at least two dozen emails proclaiming victory. The original resolution included $15 billion in cuts to the Medicaid program, but the one that passed put that $15 billion back in. All week, thousands of advocates, including constituents of APIAHF and AAPCHO, lobbied against the cuts (see our statement http://www.apiahf.org/policy/news/APIAHF_SS_Medicaid_PR_3-8-05.pdf). Lobbyists for AIDS, cancer, Medicaid, immigrants and many more causes responded. Action alerts and sign-on letters made their way around listserv land. One of those alerts, the one from FamiliesUSA, generated 12,000 emails to Congress. Constituents, especially from certain states, were recruited to call their Senators to oppose the cuts. And those of us in Washington made the rounds on Capitol Hill. If you ever wonder if all this effort gets us somewhere, this was an example of when it does.
Now I've got dozens of sign-on thank you letters to the Senators, especially Smith and Bingaman, who authored the amendment. Alas, this was just the first battle.
Here is the recap:
Every year, after the President releases his budget, each house of Congress passes a resolution that says how much they will appropriate for government spending, as a whole and by agency (the size of the pie, and the size of the pieces of the pie). The resolutions don't have to agree with the President's budget or even the other house's. That's a part of our system of checks and balances. Once passed, each house can begin working on appropriations bills for each agency with more specific spending plans within its slice of the pie.
This year, remarkably, both houses passed their budget resolutions weeks before the April 1 deadline. But they passed significantly different resolutions. While the Senate resolution has no cuts to Medicaid, the House resolution has $20 billion in cuts. When Congress gets back on April 4, a conference committee will meet to see if they can reconcile the two bills. How the House and Senate are going to reconcile a $20 billion difference is anyone's guess. But the next batch of emails I get will be action alerts targeting specific committee members. After that will be emails advocating for appropriations for specific programs like cancer funding, AIDS funding, minority health funding.
Officially this is all supposed to be done by September 30 since the fiscal year starts on October 1. But the Labor-HHS-Education appropriations bill and a dozen others have not been passed on time in the last 5 years or more and these dueling resolutions aren't going to help. Some advocates and lobbyists start betting pools on when the bills will be passed. Any takers for Thanksgiving? How about 10:57pm on December 22? In the end, what often happens is Congress combines a bunch of spending bills together in one bill called an omnibus and passes that. As you can imagine, there is no way for every Congressman to read every line of such a huge bill--especially at the end of the session when they all just want to go home.
So that's how Congress last year passed a provision that allows members of Congress to look at personal tax returns. It was slipped in at some point and no one noticed until after the bill was passed. Then they blamed an LA (legislative aid). It's been fixed.
Bottom line: the fate of Medicaid is not decided. Some of those cuts may still happen and we still have a lot of work to do to keep this important program alive. And keep Americans alive too.
Updates
- TANF has been extended again for another three months. That means that the full reauthorization may happen by then
For comments, suggestions, feedback, email Gem P. Daus at gdaus@apiahf.org
