September 2012 Appropriations Update

Budget, Election and Sequestration   

Near the end of Fiscal Year 2012, Congress is finally taking action to keep the government operating past the September 30 deadline. Last Thursday, the House passed a six month continuing resolution to keep the government operating through March 27, 2013 (note this date is after the Jan 1, 2013, date for sequestration–more on this later). The bill reflects the $1.047 trillion spending cap set by the 2011 debt negotiations, which amounts to an $8 billion increase (less than 1 percent) in overall spending. It is almost certain that this overall budget increase will not mean new dollars since the Office of Management and Budget will be offering “guidance” on how to conserve funds in the first half of the year. This means that agencies—including NIH, CDC, DOD and USAID—will be flat-funded for the start of FY 2013.

The Senate is expected to take up the House-passed continuing resolution and pass it without any changes, meaning that it could go to the president for his signature as soon as this week or early next week.

The story continues. The big elephant in the room is sequestration. If no legislative fix is agreed to, sequestration will go into effect January 1, 2013, resulting in an estimated 10- to 14-percent across-the-board cut that will impact all U.S. government programs, including global health and tropical medicine research and development programs. While it is true that Congress brought this on themselves, some feel that Congress still has time to take action to stop it from happening, at least in its current form. Recent discussions suggest that no deal will be reached before the election, which means there will only be a few weeks left in the lame-duck session to address this oncoming train wreck.  

The outcome of the election will be instrumental in determining what type of deal could be reached in a lame duck session. At least two scenarios are possible: if the Republicans take control of the White House, they may try to push deal-making or fixes to early next year so that it could be done under a Republican administration. If the Democrats retain the White House and the Senate, longer term deals or fixes may be possible during the lame-duck session since no drastic political changes will occur in January.

Stay tuned for more updates from ASTMH on the FY 2013 budget and remember to watch your email for opportunities to use the ASTMH CapWiz system to contact your Members of Congress about how sequestration and other budget cuts and impact your research or institution. Hearing from individuals continues to be one of the strongest advocacy tools we have. Individual voices matter—yours—especially in an election year.