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To: Council of Presidents
Cc: Council on Academic Affairs Council on Governmental Affairs Council on Business Affairs
Date: March 20, 2015
Re: Congressional Work on FY2016 Budget Begins
This week, the House and Senate Budget Committees marked up their respective FY2016 Budget Resolutions. The full House and Senate are scheduled to debate and vote on their resolutions next week. If each chamber passes a budget, the next step would be for the two versions to be conferenced to work out differences. A conferenced version would hit the House and Senate floors by mid-April at the earliest.
Below you will find a description of the budget process and its current status. This is more detail than I normally provide in a federal affairs update, but I think it’s important for you to have this information as we enter an important period with the budget process. We will, of course, continue to be in contact with you and your federal relations staff who are members of APLU’s Council on Governmental Affairs (CGA) throughout the FY2016 budget and appropriations process. Most immediately, as the House and Senate hold their expected votes next week, our office will alert your CGA representatives if a particularly relevant amendment comes up.
We are at the start of what will likely be a long process to determine actual spending levels for FY2016. As you know, the discretionary part of the budget is where much of the federal investment in research and education occurs. The sequestration-level caps on defense and non-defense discretionary spending for FY2016 represent a real cut in purchasing power from FY2015 after inflation. The discretionary budget caps imposed by sequestration are the current law of the land. It would take another law to change those funding levels. Budget Resolutions are guidelines for the Congress, but they do not become law and they are not binding. However, we closely track House and Senate action on their Budget Resolutions, as they are early indicators of Congress’ funding priorities.
So, while the Budget Resolutions are more of a political stance than substance, the messages included in them can be relevant and important. For example, the final Budget Resolutions could contain instructions for Congress to craft “budget reconciliation” legislation later this year and that legislation could include, among other things, real changes to the spending caps. Importantly, budgets and budget reconciliation bills only require a simple majority to pass the Senate, a lower threshold than most other bills.
The House Budget Committee passed its budget resolution on a party line vote on Thursday morning. Points of interest in Chairman Tom Price’s (R-GA) budget plan include a freeze on the maximum Pell grant award for the next 10 years and a tightening of the eligibility requirements for individuals who can receive Pell. While the Price budget would keep discretionary budget caps at the sequester level for FY2016, it would decrease non-defense discretionary levels even further in FY2017-FY2025 (for total additional cuts of $759 billion over 10 years) and increase the defense caps over the same period (for total increases of $387 billion over 10 years).
The Senate Budget Committee also passed its budget plan on a party line vote on Thursday. Chairman Mike Enzi’s (R-WY) budget also proposes cuts to student aid, including elimination of “mandatory funding” for the Pell grant program, amounting to a $90 billion cut over 10 years from Pell, and elimination of the in-school interest subsidy for undergraduate student loans. As with the Price/House budget, the Enzi/Senate budget keeps discretionary caps at the sequestration level for FY2016. However, it proposes an additional $236 billion in cuts to non-defense discretionary appropriations from FY2017-FY2025. The Enzi/Senate budget would leave the defense caps at the sequester levels in the out-years.
If these proposed cuts to non-defense discretionary spending in both the House and Senate budgets were to be enacted, they would a greatly reduce financial aid and research for at least the next decade.
Reaching out to your members of Congress with deep concerns about these provisions in the House and Senate budgets is certainly timely. There will be times in the next several weeks where we might be able to have more impact than at other times, but Congress needs to hear from us now that we are really concerned about the cuts currently in the House and Senate resolutions as they continue the process of appropriations bills, budget reconciliation, and other legislation of consequence. It will also be important to encourage support of amendments that would improve the budgets on student aid and research.
Next week’s debates in the House and Senate chambers on their respective budget resolutions will present opportunities for Members to vote on many amendments. Some may be specific to certain programs, such as amendments to stop the cuts to financial aid. Others might consider the bigger picture and propose to increase the discretionary spending caps, for instance. In the Senate especially, there may be opportunities for bi-partisan support to lift both the defense and non-defense discretionary caps that would allow for increased investments in research and student aid. Communicating over the next few days to your senators that you would strongly support such amendments will be helpful.
For your information and possible use, APLU, along with AAU and ACE sent this letter to the congressional Budget Committees last month, highlighting some big-picture issues.
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