Smoke from Canadian wildfires casts a haze over the National Mall in Washington, DC, USA, 07 June 2023. DC issued a code red air quality alert as a result of the smoke, which is affecting large portions of the northeastern United States. Image: JIM LO SCALZO/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock
By: FEDweek StaffIt remains unclear how spending limits in the recently enacted law lifting the debt ceiling will impact the federal workforce, but that should come into focus as Congress gets back to the budgeting work that was postponed during the debt limit showdown.
Those spending limits will apply in fiscal year 2024 and 2025 to agencies other than the Defense Department and VA. “Discretionary” spending at affected agencies will be capped at current levels for the first of those two—beginning in less than four months — while 1 percent growth is to be allowed for the following year.
The law also contains a series of caps that would apply through fiscal 2029, although those would not be binding and would apply only if Congress does not follow its own internal budgetary procedures.
It further states that if Congress does not enact regular appropriations by the end of calendar year 2023 and 2024, funding would be continued automatically with a 1 percent reduction on both the defense and non-defense sides. Some budgetary observers have characterized that as heading off the possibility, for this year and next, of a partial government shutdown due to a standoff over funding.
However, that provision applies to the end of a calendar year, not to the end of a fiscal year, leaving open the possibility of such a shutdown after the September 30 conclusions of the current fiscal year and fiscal 2024. The need to reauthorize agency funding by each October 1 commonly is used for the type of leverage over budgetary decisions that congressional Republicans just employed regarding the debt ceiling.
Most often Congress avoids a shutdown by enacting stopgap funding of several weeks or months. However, one of the longest partial shutdowns, in 2013, started October 1 of that year, and the continued budgetary disagreements even after enacting stopgap measures resulted in two of the other longest shutdowns, in December 1995-January 1996 and December 2018-January 2019.
It’s already widely expected that temporary funding will need to be enacted ahead of October 1 this year. The process for setting agency budgets for the upcoming fiscal year has made only limited progress since March when the White House made its annual proposal. That called for growth at nearly all agencies, which the new agreement would deny except for the requested growth at DoD and VA.
The House Appropriations Committee recently started moving several of the spending bills but then paused pending the outcome of the debt ceiling situation. That process can now restart, although there is no set schedule yet. Senate leaders said their counterpart committee would soon turn to that work, as well.
Meanwhile, the House Armed Services Committee next week will begin writing the annual defense spending bill, which often includes government-wide federal workplace policy changes as well as some specific to DoD.
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See also,
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