The Senate will begin its work on its Transportation-HUD (THUD) spending bill this week. The Senate THUD Appropriations Subcommittee is scheduled to debate its FY18 spending bill on Tuesday, July 25 at 10:30 am ET. Consideration of the THUD bill by the full Appropriations Committee is scheduled for July 27 at 11:00 am ET.
The Senate Appropriations Committee approved temporary allocations for spending bills on July 20, keeping overall discretionary spending flat at the FY17 level of $1.07 trillion but breaking the spending limits put in place by the Budget Control Act of 2011 (BCA). The Committee set a $518.5 billion limit on nondefense spending, about $3 billion more than the FY18 BCA spending cap allows.
The THUD bill received an allocation of $60.05 billion, a $2.4 billion increase from FY17 enacted levels. The spending levels are tentative until Congress reaches a bipartisan deal to lift the BCA spending caps lawmakers have called “unworkable.”
Democrats on the Committee voted against the allocations, saying that the spending levels for nondefense spending were still too low. Ranking Member Patrick Leahy (D-VT) offered an alternative that would have increased both defense and nondefense spending limits by $54 billion above the FY18 spending caps. That proposal was voted down by a party-line vote.
NLIHC will continue to advocate for the highest possible spending levels in the THUD bill and will keep advocates updated as the bill moves forward. See NLIHC’s overview of the House FY18 THUD bill here:
See NLIHC’s updated budget chart here: