As Congress gears up for a busy work period this summer, the House of Representatives just passed a resolution deeming the total spending allocation for the federal government’s annual appropriations at $1.6 trillion for FY 2023. This mirrors the total spending from President Biden’s FY 2023 budget request.  
 
The calendar is long past the regular order of a spring budget process that would have created a FY 2023 budget resolution to formalize spending levels and reconciliation instructions between the House and Senate. The “deeming resolution” is a guiding principle for the House Committee on Appropriations and will allow it to start its work writing subcommittee funding bills.
 
Student aid funding is done through the Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies Subcommittee, which has the second largest allocation after Defense. NAICU’s priority for FY 2023 funding is anchored by our request to double the Pell Grant maximum to $13,000, along with substantial increases for the Campus Based Aid Programs, and the Strengthening Institutions Grants.  NAICU President Barbara Mistick sent a letter to appropriators earlier this spring outlining these and other priorities. 
 
The next steps are for the House to write its bills before the August recess and pass them in September. While the House and Senate appropriations leaders have been in conversations about where to set the spending levels, it is unclear if the Senate will be able to move as quickly as the House.  The reasons for a possible delay are the tight party margins in the Senate and the politics of the upcoming mid-term elections seeping into debates. Final bills are not expected until a likely post-election lame duck session.