Democrats lay down marker for agency spending in FY25 funding bills

Senate Democrats are making a promise to federal agencies: any funding increase lawmakers agree to award to the Defense Department will be matched by the same rate of increase for domestic offices. 

With 2024 appropriations resolved only once the fiscal year was already halfway over, Congress now faces a compressed timeline to avoid a shutdown risk this fall. Key lawmakers have said they are still set on passing the funding bills in a timely fashion, but they are already behind schedule. 

The top-line spending levels were previously set by the Fiscal Responsibility Act, the two-year budget deal President Biden agreed to with House Republicans last year in exchange for raising the debt limit. Still, Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., who chairs the Senate Appropriations Committee, predicted lawmakers would seek to tinker with those numbers to boost national security funding. She vowed to only go along with such adjustments if equal changes are made for non-defense discretionary spending, saying on Wednesday she “want[s] everyone to really hear me.” 

“For me, the word of the day, today—and every day until we pass our funding bills—is going to be parity,” Murray said. “By that, I mean that when my Republican colleagues insist that, despite the Fiscal Responsibility Act, we need to boost spending in national security, I will also insist that the boost to defense spending be matched with a similar increase for investments here at home.”

Murray conceded that “stronger investments in our military” will be necessary, but so too would be boosts for child care, health care, education, the environment, research and many other priorities. Her committee successfully produced bipartisan spending bills for the 12 annual measures Congress produced last year and she said she plans to do so once again. 

On the House side, the Appropriations Committee is now headed up by veteran lawmaker Rep. Tom Cole, R-Okla., who represents many federal employees and has advocated for them throughout his career. 

Murray noted that Democrats provided the majority of “yes” votes in both chambers for the fiscal 2024 spending bills, despite serving the House minority. She implored her House counterparts to tune out “the loudest voices on the right, the ones who clearly don’t want to govern.” 

Current funding is set to expire Oct. 1, slightly more than one month before the presidential election. Congress often kicks the can in such a period with a stopgap measure to tide agencies over into the lame-duck period. Asked if he thought it was realistic for Congress to pass appropriations before the deadline this fall, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said he is remaining optimistic. 

“I have great faith in Patty Murray and our Appropriations Committee, and they're going to work very hard,” Schumer said. “No one thought they could get it done last time and look at the great job they did.”