Budget Story Update

While we publish a weekly Washington Budget Report (sign up here), we wanted to direct your attention to some other budget items we are watching this week.

While we publish a weekly Washington Budget Report (sign up here), we wanted to direct your attention to some other budget items we are watching this week.

• The Senate is considering a McCaskill/ Sessions (amendment text here) that would institute statutory discretionary spending caps for three years.

• Senators Coburn and McCain will offer amendments to provide offsets for the Senate’s $59 billion supplemental spending bill.

• The House Appropriations Committee will meet on Thursday afternoon to consider the House version of the war supplemental. Recent reports have suggested that the House bill will add domestic funding to the $59 billion bill that the Senate is considering.

• Earlier this week, a Washington Post editorial raised concerns about the effect the extenders bill and the supplemental will have on the deficit. Some members of the House and the Senate have also raised concerns about the cost of the extenders bill.

• Yesterday, the Congressional Budget Office released a report analyzing the effect that the 2009 stimulus law had on the economy and employment during the first quarter of 2010. CBO concluded that the law has had a positive effect on real GDP, the unemployment rate, and the number of people employed.

• On Monday, the President sent a proposal to Congress requesting enhanced authority to rescind spending. The Government Accountability Office also recently released a report  including statistics for all rescissions that have been proposed and enacted since 1974. Last December, The Concord Coalition’s Executive Director, Robert Bixby, testified before Congress on the subject of enhanced rescission authority.

The next edition of the Washington Budget Report will be published on June 7th.