Director’s Desk: May 8, 2013
Kenneth Gold | May 8, 2013
For the first time in five years, both the House and the Senate have passed their respective FY14 budget resolutions. The next step in the budget process mandates that the two chambers go to conference, and sets a target date of April 15 to produce a concurrent budget resolution, although the deadline is rarely met. The differences in the bills are significant. The House bill proposes to balance the budget in ten years, primarily through massive cuts in entitlement programs and non-defense discretionary spending. The Senate version is divided 50-50 between revenue increases and program cuts, with some changes to entitlement spending, with the majority of the discretionary cuts coming out of defense spending, and doesn’t propose to balance the budget at all. Chances of reaching a compromise would be slim at best, if they could reach an agreement on how to convene a conference committee, but so far they’ve not been able to do even that. We’ll examine these issues in detail in our upcoming Advanced Budget and Appropriations Process class, one of the Advanced Classes in our Certificate Program.
Categories: Director's Desk, Updates