Cardinals Give Behind-the-Scenes View of the Appropriations Process
Today, we're putting a spotlight on Interior and Environment Subcommittee Chairman Mike Simpson's (R-ID) video series titled “Appropriations 101.” The recently launched initiative brings together Cardinals and Members of the Committee to speak about the intricacies of the appropriations process.
The first guest was Appropriations Committee Chairman Tom Cole (R-OK). In this episode, the two appropriators candidly discuss what goes into developing and passing 12 bills each fiscal year.
Watch Subcommittee Chairman Simpson and Chairman Cole’s conversation here.
Simpson: “We, as appropriators, want to get all our bills done, get them done on time before the next fiscal year starts. That hasn't happened since 1994, but we are still trying to get it done and get it through. Talk to us a little bit about that. What it's like being Chairman of the Committee.”
Cole: “Number one, it’s a great privilege, and it's a sign of confidence in your colleagues having you, but it's an enormous responsibility. I think the range of activity for the United States Government spans – everything from biomedical research, to defending the country, to building roads and highways, to helping our less fortunate folks, and providing aid to state disasters. Just enormous range… It's an enormous amount of money, $1.6 trillion spread over the entire range of activity. And one of our great frustrations is they think we appropriate everything. We don't. We don't do Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid. Those are the mandatory programs that are not controlled by the Appropriations Committee, and those are things that drive the deficit… If you look over the years, we've done a better job of controlling discretionary spending than we've done of controlling the expenses and the income for, you know, things like Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.”
Simpson: “You told me one time that we went for a 10-year period where the discretionary part of the budget, which is only 28% of the total funding the other 72% is mandatory spending. But we went for 10 years [where discretionary spending was held flat].”
Cole: “We did. We went from Fiscal Year 2010 to Fiscal Year 2019. During that period, John Boehner, our mutual friend, was the Speaker. He passed something called the Budget Control Act. We lived within that. So, in 2019, we were spending less on defense than we were in 2010, and we were spending less on non-defense. So, our total budget went down in that same period of time.”
Simpson: “What's your goal this year in being Chairman of the Committee?”
Cole: “Well, first you have to remember, I came in at midstream. We're halfway through the fiscal year, and we had not gotten our appropriations budgets done at that point, they were out of committee, but they were not across the floor. We were able to get that done. We got great leadership from Kay Granger – my predecessor – and great leadership from Speaker Mike Johnson. So, in March, we passed all of the appropriations bills in two large minibuses, as they're called. Since then, we've tried to catch up, because we're six months behind. The goal – number one – is to get all the bills written by the subcommittees and then through the full committee by the August break. That's a very intense schedule. We'll also begin to move them across the floor this week. We'll move the first one: Military Construction and Veterans Affairs. If all goes well, and that's probably as important a bill as we do, keeping the faith and trust with our veterans who served us well and who we made commitments to… It's going to be a tall order to get all these bills across the floor. We'll get several of them and get them out of committee and get in a position we can sit down negotiate with our counterparts in the Senate and on the other side of the aisle well.”
###
