Federal Allies Institute applauds Rep. Paul Ryan (WI-1) and Sen. Patty Murray (WA) in reaching a deal to fund the federal government and avoid another government shutdown. Federal Allies recognizes that another government shutdown would have adversely impacted its membership composed of government contractors who routinely navigate the federal government contracting system in order to secure favorable government contracts to expand and grow their businesses.
It is important to recognize in this spending
deal
that it applies to only the discretionary portion of the federal budget.
Recognizing how previous Congresses have established funding mechanisms, the
funding and spending for so-called “mandatory” programs such as Medicaid,
Medicare, Social Security and the Affordable Care Act are all “effectively on
auto-pilot” and would not be affected by whether or not a budget deal was ever
reached. The amount of spending provided through Fiscal Year 2015 is $2 billion
higher, which is an increase of .2% from Fiscal Year 2014’s total of $1,012
billion with the revenue raised coming from fees.
Federal Allies member companies recognize how
important it is for lawmakers to work together. Congressman Randy Hultgren
(IL-14) said, “by actually capping discretionary spending levels below two
previously passed House budgets and the caps put in place by the Budget Control
Act of 2011 - without raising taxes - we are preserving fiscal responsibility
and opening the door to true reform of our 17 trillion debt problem.”
Governing through continuing resolutions and short
term budgets “hurts our ability to properly oversee federal spending, endangers
our national defense and squelches opportunities to pass debt solutions that
require looking further than six months down the road,” said Hultgren.
Federal Allies recognizes that this budget agreement
reflects an attempt to at least debate a balanced budget and, according to the
White House, marks an important moment of bipartisan co-operation. Furthermore,
Federal Allies recognizes that this deal shows that Washington can stop
governing by crisis and both sides can work together to get things
accomplished.
The Ryan/Murray deal is an incremental step to
lower spending and the deal is projected to reduce the federal deficit by
roughly $23 to 28 billion and does not impose new tax increases.
Consequently, while critical of the budget deal,
Rep. Michele Bachmann (MN-6), recently conceded that the Ryan/Murray budget
does provide some much needed certainty to job creators and small business
owners who have openly advocated that Washington, “should stop governing by
crisis and both sides can work together to get things done,” though, at the
time of the writing of this article, another response to the deal by Senator
Kelly Ayotte (NH) highlights a $6 billion allocation for Vet COLA.
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