August 7, 2024: Progress and Pitfalls for FY2025 Appropriations
Progress and Pitfalls for FY2025 Appropriations
Before heading home for a month-long break, House and Senate lawmakers made some progress on Fiscal Year (FY) 2025 appropriations. Here’s an overview of where things stand, what hasn’t been done, and how this compares to expectations and last year’s performance. Hat tip to my colleague, Ricardo Pacheco, for this astute analysis!
Where Things Stand
House Majority Leader Steve Scalise’s proposed schedule was ambitious, aiming for the House to complete its work on all 12 spending bills before the August recess. This timeline has proven overly optimistic, as only five bills have passed on the House floor with highly partisan vote splits:
Military Construction-VA: Passed on June 5 (209-197)
Defense: Passed on June 28 (217-198)
Homeland Security: Passed on June 28 (212-203)
State-Foreign Operations: Passed on June 28 (212-200)
Interior-Environment: Passed on July 24 (210-205)
Additionally, House GOP leaders pulled several bills from floor consideration due to intraparty disputes, including Financial Services and General Government, Agriculture/FDA, and Energy-Water. They also brought the Legislative Branch funding bill to the floor for it to fail 205-213.
Meanwhile, the Senate has moved 11 of 12 appropriations bills out of committee with strong bipartisan support, but none have made it to the Senate floor. At the Senate Appropriations Committee’s most recent markup, Chair Patty Murray noted that the committee will continue working toward a bipartisan agreement on the remaining Homeland Security bill when they return from the August recess.
Comparison to Last Year
The Senate’s focus on advancing bipartisan spending bills at the committee level mirrors last year’s process. The House’s more partisan efforts also look a lot like last year’s, albeit with some more progress this time around. In FY2024, the House passed only one appropriations bill before the August recess (Military Construction-VA) compared to five this year.
We dig into these comparisons more in Table A below.
Table A: Comparing House Votes on Standalone FY2024 Appropriations Bills, House Republicans’ Floor Schedule for FY2025 Appropriations Bills, and FY2025 Bills’ Current Status in the House and Senate
| APPROPRIATIONS BILL | LAST YEAR’S REALITY (FOR FY2024) | HOUSE GOP EXPECTATION (FOR FY2025) | FY2025 HOUSE REALITY (AS OF AUGUST 5, 2024) | FY2025 SENATE REALITY (AS OF AUGUST 5, 2024) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Agriculture | Floor vote failed on Sept. 28, 2023 | Floor vote week of July 22-26 | Approved in full committee (29-26) / Pulled from House floor vote | Approved in full committee (27-0) |
| Commerce-Justice-Science | No floor vote | Floor vote week of July 22-26 | Approved in full committee (31-26) | Approved in full committee (26-3) |
| Defense | Floor vote passed on Sept. 28, 2023 | Floor vote week of June 24-28 | Approved in House on June 28, 2024 (217-198) | Approved in full committee (28-0) |
| Energy-Water | Floor vote passed on Oct. 26, 2023 | Floor vote week of July 29-Aug. 2 | Approved in full committee (30-26) / Pulled from House floor vote | Approved in full committee (28-0) |
| Financial Services-Gen. Gov. | No floor vote | Floor vote week of July 22-26 | Approved in full committee (33-24) / Pulled from House floor vote | Approved in full committee (27-0) |
| Homeland Security | Floor vote passed on Sept. 28, 2023 | Floor vote week of June 24-28 | Approved in House on June 28, 2024 (212-203) | TBD |
| Interior-Environment | Floor vote passed on Nov. 3, 2023 | Floor vote week of July 22-26 | Approved in House (210-205) | Approved in full committee (28-1) |
| Labor-HHS-Education | No floor vote | Floor vote week of July 29-Aug. 2 | Approved in full committee (31-25) | Approved in full committee (25-3) |
| Legislative Branch | Floor vote passed on Nov. 1, 2023 | Floor vote week of July 8-12 | Floor vote failed on July 11, 2024 (205-213) | Approved in full committee (27-0) |
| Military Construction-VA | Floor vote passed on July 27, 2023 | Floor vote week of June 3-7 | Approved in House on June 5, 2024 (209-197) | Approved in full committee (27-0) |
| State-Foreign Operations | Floor vote passed on Sept. 28, 2023 | Floor vote week of June 24-28 | Approved in House on June 28, 2024 (212-200) | Approved in full committee (24-5) |
| Transportation-HUD | No floor vote | Floor vote week of July 29-Aug. 2 | Approved in full committee (31-26) | Approved in full committee (28-1) |
Sources: Appropriations Status Table: FY2024 and Appropriations Status Table: FY2025 (Congressional Research Service).
Challenges Ahead
Congress must pass an FY2025 appropriations package by September 30 or a stopgap measure to avoid a government shutdown on October 1. The latter is far more likely. Here’s why:
History. In every election year for the past decade, Congress has had to extend its funding deadlines three or more times and, on average, finalized appropriations bills 4.5 months late. We explored those trends in our March 26 update.
House/Senate differences. The House and Senate spending bills vary significantly on policy and spending. According to the Clean Budget Coalition, the House GOP’s bills contain 475 poison pill policy riders. Those differences will need to be reconciled before a final package can become law.
Timing. After the August recess, House and Senate lawmakers will only have three weeks before the end of the fiscal year on September 30, after which they’ll head home for another month-long recess. This leaves little time to resolve the aforementioned differences.
GOP infighting. Again, the House GOP had to pull three spending bills from floor consideration due to internal disagreements. Resolving those differences to get to a negotiating position will take time—and, again, time is short.
We’ll continue to share updates on this process. Folks can find our previous updates and sign up for future ones here. We appreciate your helping spread the word about our Unrig the Rules program to keep stakeholders informed about what’s happening in Congress and what it means.