While each of 12 FY16 appropriations bills have been marked up by both Senate and House appropriations committees, none are expected to be enacted in time for the start of the fiscal year, leaving it again to a continuing resolution to keep the federal government operating beginning October 1. The delays—due recently to policy rider disagreements but more fundamentally to disagreements about the overall federal budget—and likely scenarios are described in the following:
In the links above, one will also read about the push by the Administration and many Democrats in Congress to increase the budget caps for FY16. There are many articles describing the budget dynamics but this one appeared recently in the Washington Post, Congress provides ingredients for December budget-debt showdown (by Paul Kane, July 30), and this one in The Hill: Dems show their hand in budget poker (by Rebecca Shabad, July 26).
The budgets for NIH, NSF, and the federal statistical agencies are tracked in the following blog entries: FY16 Statistical Agency Budget Developments and FY16 NSF and NIH Budget Developments. Briefly, NIH is posed to do very well with a $1 billion in the House bill and a $2 billion in the Senate bill. NSF is held essentially flat by both chambers. The federal statistical agency budgets generally do not fare well. Both the House and Senate marks seriously underfund the Census Bureau at a level that would undermine both decennial census planning and the American Community Survey. The Senate mark for the BLS is a 2% cut and would surely lead to program cuts since the BLS budget has been cut by 10% since 2010 when inflation is accounted for. The House cuts the budgets for the two Department of Agriculture statistical agencies by 6-8% and the Senate holds ERS flat while cutting NASS 2.5%. These agencies are already operating on very lean budgets because of the sequestration cuts. The Senate mark for NCHS is a 7% cut. The BEA budget is held constant by both the House and Senate but this will amount to a cut because of its $4 million move to Census headquarters. For the statistical agencies to avoid these cuts, the most likely path is an increase of the overall budget caps.
The House also zeroes out the budget for the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, which they also did three years ago (and may be due to more ideological concerns than budget ones.)
I encourage ASA members to contact their U.S. Senators and Representative in support of the budgets for any of the agencies above (and keep in mind that many Members will be in their home districts/states in August and making appearances.) A template Census letter can be found here. Template messages in support of NIH are expected to be posted when Congress is back in session this fall and I'll update this blog with that info and also circulate it on ASA Connect, along with any other community wide alerts. For AHRQ, go to the Friends of AHRQ webpage and click on "Take Action". Please let me know of any correspondence to Members of Congress to that I can potentially follow up the contacts.
See also:
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