Womack rues pace of budgeting in D.C.

WASHINGTON — As the U.S. Congress rushes to pass a $1.2 trillion spending package before midnight today, Rep. Steve Womack, R-Ark., is among the lawmakers voicing concern about the current appropriations process.

Womack, a senior appropriator on the House of Representatives Appropriations Committee, addressed Congress’ pattern of failing to approve spending bills on time during a portion of a House

Thursday concerning President Joe Biden’s proposed budget for the next fiscal year.

House appropriators began consideration of the president’s proposal for fiscal 2025 this week with the backdrop of Congress needing to pass a spending package to fund multiple government agencies, including the departments of Defense and Treasury.

Appropriations leaders unveiled the $1.2 trillion spending package early Thursday morning with lawmakers working to pass the legislation today to avoid a partial government shutdown. Once Congress approves the latest package, it will complete the legislative body’s pertinent spending work for the current fiscal year, which began Oct. 1.

“The fact is we’re in the sixth month of the fiscal year and we still have not completed — hopefully, will tomorrow — the fiscal ’24 appropriations measures,” Womack said Thursday.

Womack, of Rogers, made his comment alongside colleagues of the Financial Services and General Government Subcommittee, which oversees spending related to the Treasury Department, District of Columbia and multiple independent agencies separate from federal departments. The congressman serves as the body’s chairman.

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and Shalanda Young, director of the White House Office of Management and Budget, appeared before the subcommittee to answer questions regarding the White House’s budget proposal.

Congress addressed spending for the current fiscal year in two separate packages. Federal lawmakers approved the first measure March 8, agreeing on $460 billion in spending on agriculture, energy and water development, veterans affairs, transportation and housing.

The second package addresses $886 billion for defense coupled with funding for the Department of Health and Human Services, the Treasury Department, and other departments and agencies, including the Internal Revenue Service.

The spending amounts stem from last May’s debt ceiling deal between Biden and then-House Speaker Kevin McCarthy. The president and members of Congress hoped the Fiscal Responsibility Act would serve as a foundation for passing Congress’ annual appropriations bills before the current fiscal year’s start, but federal lawmakers failed to accomplish that goal.

Rep. Steny Hoyer, D-Md., the subcommittee’s top Democrat, said Congress’ handling of the current fiscal year’s spending bills is a “testament to how broken our appropriations process is.

“Frankly, everybody thinks that [if] they keep waiting, they’ll get their way,” Hoyer said.

Senate appropriators approved all 12 spending bills with little work in the full chamber. As for the House, members of the chamber’s Republican majority opposed portions of some spending bills, causing leaders to pull those measures from the floor.

Republican leadership opted against holding a final vote on Womack’s bill in November amid disagreements in the House Republican Conference on funding a new FBI headquarters and language related to abortion services.

While addressing Young, Womack mentioned his experience helping lead the Joint Select Committee on Budget and Appropriations Process Reform in 2018. The bicameral committee studied challenges hindering Congress’ ability to manage the appropriations process, but the body was unable to recommend draft legislation addressing the matter.

Womack suggested lawmakers should consider passing biennial budgets with an option for annual reconciliation, which the committee considered during its work.

“It is my strong belief that some of the recommendations brought about by the joint select committee should be acted on by Congress,” Womack said.

The select committee’s work overlapped with Womack’s tenure as House Budget Committee chairman.

Young, who worked as a House Appropriations Committee staffer before joining the Office of Management and Budget in March 2021, recognized Congress has an “inherent process problem” and offered a willingness to collaborate with lawmakers on solutions.

“What I do worry about,” she added, “I think there is inherent value in Congress looking at part of the budget every year.”

Young cautioned against appropriators implementing steps to pass spending bills that would reduce Congress’ annual appropriations work.

“It’s so ugly, [that] if you’re not forced to do it, you wouldn’t do it, in my view,” she said. “I would hate to see anything get in the way of that annual process.”

Regarding the president’s $7.3 trillion budget proposal, Yellen and Young touted the plan, arguing the suggested spending would boost the president’s efforts to address priorities presented in the American Rescue Plan and Inflation Reduction Act.

Womack, however, did not share the same feeling, contending the Biden administration and congressional colleagues have backed policies putting the country on an “unsustainable trajectory,” adding that the proposal fails to address mandatory spending.

“Our members are taking a hard look at the spending request line by line, and will determine a level of funding that prioritizes putting our fiscal house in order consistent with the Fiscal Responsibility Act,” Womack said.