FY2012 appropriations for the Department of Defense (excluding Military Construction) base budget would be $9 billion (-1.7 percent) lower than President Obama’s request, according to FY2012 funding limits released this week by the House Appropriations Committee (HAC). Military Construction funding included in the Military Construction/Veteran’s Affairs appropriation would be $700 million lower than the request under the HAC plan.
Appropriations Committees set subcommittee allocations (302(b)) annually so they can begin work on appropriations bills. The Senate Appropriations Committee has not yet set its allocations.
For FY2012, the HAC allocated $1.019 trillion in total discretionary budget authority (provided in appropriations acts), $121.6 billion below the request. All subcommittee allocations were below the amounts requested by the president. The largest reduction, $41.6 billion (-23 percent), was to the Labor, HHS, Education appropriation. The Transportation, Housing appropriation FY2012 allocation cut the request by $27 billion, a 36 percent reduction.
The HAC allocations for all other appropriations, except DoD, would also be lower than the enacted level for FY2011. The $530 billion limit set for DoD would be $17 billion higher than the amount enacted for FY2011.
House Appropriations Committee chair Harold Rogers (R-KY) also released the subcommittee and full committee markup schedule for the FY2012 appropriations bills. Rogers plans to complete House committee action on all 12 appropriations bills by the August recess.
Under the schedule, the Homeland Security and Military Construction/Veterans Affairs bills would complete full committee action before Memorial Day. Subcommittee markup of the FY2012 DoD appropriations bill will be on June 1, with full committee action on June 14. The last two bills to complete full House committee action will be the Labor, HHS and State, Foreign Operations bills. These two bills routinely contain the most controversial issues.
