After a year filled with partisan struggle (which included a temporary government shutdown), congressional representatives showed support for the a proposed federal spending bill on Monday. If approved by both houses of Congress, it would create a $1 trillion budget for the 2014 fiscal year.
The bill is divided into 12 major sections of government spending. The two sections that garner most of the budget are the Department of Defense (DOD); Labor, Health and Human Services (HHS) and Education appropriations.
The DOD is responsible for all facets of national security and military readiness, and it encompasses nearly half of all government spending in this bill. The proposed budget for this section is $486.9 billion, relatively similar to the budget of 2013.
The DOD will use $85 billion of their allocated money for ongoing military action, a decrease in $2 billion from last year. Another noticeable decrease in defense spending is noted in the facet of Research & Development.
“The bill contains $63.0 billion – $6.9 billion below the fiscal year
2013 enacted level – for research, development, test, and evaluation of new defense
technologies,” noted a CNN political correspondent. “This basic and applied research, system development, and testing helps to
advance the safety and success of current and future military operations and will help prepare our
nation to meet a broad range of potential security threats.”
Based upon the decrease in spending for ongoing military operations and Research & Development, one could infer that less military involvement can be expected from the United States in the Middle East during this year.
The second largest budget allocation falls into the section of Labor, HHS, and Education appropriations. This section garners $156.8 billion of the federal budget for the 2014 fiscal year- $100 million less than was provided to this section of the budget in the 2013 fiscal year, and $9 billion less than President Obama hoped to have allocated to this section.
The legislation seeks to focus tax dollars on programs that are critical to the health and well-being of Americans, including disease prevention and research programs and bio-defense efforts.
Of the 3 areas in this section, this budget focuses primarily on HHS, and that is evident in the planned allocation of government revenue. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the National Institute of Health (NIH), and the Social Security Administration (SSA) received funding increases of $567 million, $1 billion, and $265 million, respectively.
Both the Department of Education (DoE) and the Department of Labor (DoL) will receive budget cuts if the bill goes into effect. The DoE would receive $70.6 billion for this fiscal year, a decrease in funding of $739 million from 2013, while the DoL would receive $12 billion, a decrease of $449 million.
Also noted in the bill was the fact that the federal government will provide no funding at all this year for pre-school development grants, or “Race to the Top” college affordability programs. Obviously, this is not a sign of encouragement for college students and aspiring collegiate students.
“I think they should focus more on providing money for education,” says Cedric Grant, a film major at Georgia State. “I would also like to see more tax breaks for the working class and the middle class. We make up the majority of the country’s population. Why should the wealthy continue getting tax breaks when we need the money more?”
Senator Tom Cole talked about how it is impossible to please everyone when you make a bill. However, he noted on the positive side that this bill was $164 billion less than President George W. Bush’s last bill.
Government officials hope that the passing of this bill creates optimism among the American people about their government, as opposed to last year. When polled last year, citizens voted with an overwhelming percentage that the current members of congress were doing a poor job of running the country.
“This agreement shows the American people that we can compromise, and that we can govern,” noted Barbara Mikulski, the representative in the Senate for the state of Maryland.
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UPDATE:
The House of Representative approved this bill on Wednesday and has now been passed to the Senate for final approval.
This story was edited by Cameron Washington at 6:27 P.M. on 1/15/14
