Spending allocations show boosts for Defense, Transportation

The House Appropriations Committee will propose a $508 billion Defense spending bill and a $68.8 billion Transportation-HUD funding measure under the 302(b) allocations for the fiscal 2010 appropriations bills.

The committee is expected to vote on the allocations for the 12 bills Tuesday before the full committee markup of the $64.3 billion fiscal 2010 Commerce-Justice-Science Appropriations bill. The allocations were obtained by CongressDaily Monday.

The proposal includes $1.086 trillion in discretionary spending, about $74 billion more than the $1.012 trillion sought for fiscal 2009.

The defense number is more than $20 billion over the $488 billion fiscal 2009 Defense spending bill allocation. The $68.8 billion Transportation-HUD figure is about $14 billion more than the $55 billion allocated last year.

The increase in defense spending comes after the committee boosted the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee's spending by $28 billion from fiscal 2008 to fiscal 2009. Former President George W. Bush originally sought a $32.4 billion increase between fiscal 2008 and fiscal 2009.

The proposed funding for the fiscal 2010 Transportation-HUD appropriations bill comes as Congress is looking to renew the surface transportation authorization bill, which expires Sept. 30.

The committee is recommending $48.8 billion for the State-Foreign Operations bill, a $12 billion increase over the $36.6 billion fiscal 2009 figure. The Labor-HHS spending measure would receive $160.7 billion in fiscal 2010, a boost of about $7.5 billion over last year.

Other subcommittee allocations are: Agriculture: $22.9 billion, an increase of more than $2 billion over fiscal 2009 allocations; Energy and Water: $33.3 billion, a slight increase of less than $100 million; Financial Services: $23.6 billion, an increase of more than $1 billion; Homeland Security: $42.4 billion, an increase of more than $2 billion; Interior-Environment, $32.3 billion, an increase of about $4.5 billion; Legislative Branch: $4.7 billion, an increase of about $300 million; and Military Construction-VA: $76.5 billion, an increase of more than $3 billion.