House Allocates Spending

One day after passing the emergency supplemental spending bill, House Appropriations Chairman Livingston Friday distributed proposed FY98 spending allocations to his subcommittees -- with the Labor-HHS, Transportation and National Security subcommittees being the big winners and Military Construction the big loser.

"These spending levels for all functions of the federal government are consistent with those specified in the Balanced Budget Agreement," Livingston said in a statement, referring to the so-called 602(b) allocations.

He again said he reserves the right to terminate unnecessary programs in an effort to scale back the size of government. In his statement, Livingston specifically mentioned the Ounce of Prevention Council, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Globe Program, the Advanced Technology Program and Americorps -- the Clinton administration's national service initiative -- as possible elimination targets.

The 602(b) allocations distributed reflect non-emergency spending in the supplemental spending bill and rescissions contained in that bill. However, they do not include emergency spending in that legislation. Overall, including rescissions and offsets, discretionary spending in FY98 will total almost $517 billion -- some $10.7 billion more than discretionary programs received during FY97. The full Appropriations Committee is expected to meet Wednesday to adopt the allocations.

During the 104th Congress, committee Democrats offered alternative allocations. After the allocations are approved, spending subcommittees will immediately begin their work. The Interior, Treasury-Postal and Military Construction subcommittees may mark up their bills next week.

Following are the subcommittee allocations -- not including emergency spending, but including rescissions, crime trust fund and non-emergency spending.

The Agriculture Subcommittee would receive almost $13.7 billion, $43 million more than this year; Commerce-Justice-State would receive almost $31.3 billion, $1.7 billion more than in FY97; the D.C. panel would receive $805 million, $86 million than this year; the Energy and Water Subcommittee would receive almost $20 billion, $66 million less than this year.

In addition, the Foreign Operations panel would receive $12.5 billion, $223 million more than in FY97; Interior would receive $13 billion, $513 million more than during the current year; Labor-HHS would receive almost $80 billion, some $4.5 billion more than in FY97; the Legislative Branch Subcommittee would receive almost $2.5 billion, $40 million more than FY97; Military Construction would receive $9.2 billion, $612 million less than this year; National Security would receive $248.1 billion, $6.2 billion more than the current year; the Transportation panel would receive $12.5 billion, $1.6 billion more than this year; Treasury Postal would receive $12.5 billion, $641 million more than in FY97; and VA-HUD would receive almost $61 billion, $3.1 billion more than in the current year.