Congress kicks off government funding process for 2027

By Thérèse Boudreaux
The Center Square

Six months out from fiscal year 2027, U.S. lawmakers are making progress on the annual 12 appropriations bills that will fund the federal government.

The House Appropriations Committee advanced the first two bills – one funding general government services and the other funding military construction and Veterans Affairs – in a set of congressional hearings Friday.

With a topline of $25.4 billion, the Financial Services-General Government bill funds the departments of Treasury, Judiciary, and Executive, as well as the IRS, U.S. Postal Service, and the District of Columbia.

The bill reduces federal spending by roughly $1 billion via cuts to the Consumer Product Safety Commission, the Election Assistance Commission, and the Small Business Administration, though SBA does receive $143 million in new disaster funding.

“The bill eliminates wasteful spending, reins in bureaucratic overreach, and restores accountability across government,” committee Chairman Tom Cole, R-Okla., said. “Americans expect us to be responsible stewards of their tax dollars. This is a smart, principled bill that delivers a government that works smarter, faster, and more efficiently.”

Multiple Republican priorities are included, including shrinking the size of the federal workforce to pre-pandemic levels, banning D.C.’s needle exchange program, and reversing D.C.’s legalization of assisted suicide.

It also prohibits the Treasury from establishing a Central Bank Digital Currency or discontinuing paper currency, as well as codifies several of President Donald Trump’s executive orders.

Those include EOs ending cashless bail and addressing crime in D.C., combatting fraud within federal offices, and consolidating federal procurement under one government office.

Committee Democrats spoke out against the cuts, which they argued would weaken election infrastructure, enable further market consolidation by big corporations, and underfund federal agencies that combat scams and tax fraud.

Ranking Member Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., called the bill “a boon for the very rich and large corporations.”

“It does nothing to alleviate the strain on working families who are struggling just to get by as the cost-of-living crisis continues unabated,” she added. “In fact, it makes this problem even worse.”

Democrats generally supported the Military Construction-Veterans Affairs bill, however, which allocates $19 billion for military construction and over $450 billion in Veterans Affairs spending, including veterans’ benefits and health care.

While the bill increases funding for Suicide Prevention and Treatment Programs and Rural Health and Substance Use Disorder Programs, it also cuts NATO’s infrastructure program.

“We have a moral responsibility to take care of our veterans and servicemembers. It is part of our job in Congress, and on this Committee, to make sure that their devotion to our country is matched by their country’s devotion to them,” DeLauro said. “This is only the first stage of this bill, and I look forward to continuing to work with our colleagues to address some of the issues that still remain.”

The annual appropriations process is generally undertaken in a spirit of bipartisanship, given the economically and politically expensive fallout of government shutdowns.

Yet the 119th Congress has already weathered two record-breaking shutdowns – the second of which is still ongoing – due to multiple dramatic breakdowns in funding negotiations.